Have you found Melody?
by starryblueboxes
Summary: Melody Pond grew up in Leadworth with both of her parents while secretly being brainwashed to become a deadly weapon against the Doctor. Madame Kovarian's schemes may not go according to plan though, if a certain strange man doesn't leave the child alone.
1. Chapter 1: Progress

_So basically, this is going to be about how Melody/Mels grew up. When it's in Melody's perspective it'll be in first person, everyone elses is in third. Also, I should mention that when Melody turned up in New York regenerating, obviously there had to be a reason she was regenerating, and this first part is an idea I had which seemed sort of possible._

_disclaimer: sadly I don't own Doctor who or any of the characters, except maybe minor ones that may appear later on in the story. _

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><p>"Dr. Renfrew, did you bring her?"<p>

Renfrew glanced over to the woman who seemed to have been talking to herself moments before. She had dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, and dark lipstick as well. She wore what appeared to be a business type of suit, and stood professionally in front of him, patiently awaiting a reply. What Dr. Renfrew found most peculiar was the eye patch this woman was wearing. It triggered some forgotten part of his memory, he could swear, just as he could on so many other things, that he'd seen her before.

"W...who?" He asked. His mind was so scattered these days he was often lucky to remember dates and time.

"The child!" She said almost chidingly.

"Oh, yes." He turned with a nod. "The little girl." She was important, he knew. That's what they always said. He still couldn't recall who 'they' were though.

"Well, bring her to me. We must make progress or she'll never be ready."

Renfrew nodded once again and then fled to retrieve the frightened eight year old.

Upon returning, the little girl, Melody Pond, recognized the woman and rushed towards her, enveloping her in a fragile hug. "Madame Kovarian!" she cried. "This space man tried to eat me and..." She tried to convey all of her fear of what was recently happening to her into one sentence, but broke off, unable to find the right words.

"Shh, it's okay." Kovarian comforted, although it hardly helped. Melody was still very scared.

Madame Kovarian straightened and pulled her little arms away from her waist. "Hold her still would you?" she nodded to two silents who seemed (to Melody and Dr. Renfrew ) to have appeared from nowhere. Obediently they reached for the little girls arms.

"What are they?" Melody asked more from curiosity than disgust. She'd been raised from a baby around them and although she often couldn't remember, she had subconsciously grown a bit comfortable with them during her stay in the orphanage.

The two silents each grabbed hold of an arm and waited for further instruction. Melody glanced nervously at the woman, her heart beginning to pound. "What are you doing?" she asked.

Madame Kovarian reached for a gun sitting on the old table nearby. "Now, Melody. We're going to play a game, okay? Dr. Renfrew is going to shoot this at you, it won't hurt. When he does, I want you to focus on changing your face. Can you do that?"

Melody's eyes widened at the sight of the gun. The woman with the red hair had had a gun too. If it wouldn't have been for the spacesuit that she'd been entrapped in, she might be dead now. She tried to back away, but something was holding her still. "No!" she cried. "Madame, no one can change their face. I don't understand..."

"Yes you can dear." Kovarian said. "Just think about it. You are a very special little girl, you can do it. Now, Dr. Renfrew." She handed the weapon to him.

"No." Renfrew protested "She's a child, surely she'll die."

"Of course she will." Madame Kovarian grinned. "But we've altered her DNA, she will either regenerate, or she'll heal and we'll have to try again. As long as one heart is still working, then we've nothing to worry about. Progress must be made."

"But...she's only a child!" He repeated. He started to hand the gun back to the lady but was stopped by a third silent in the desolate room. "You will shoot the girl!" it hissed.

With a whimper Dr. Renfrew shook his head and looked away. "Thank you." MadameKovarian said. "At times it's always nice to have assistance."

"Have what, mam'?" Renfrew asked confused.

She waved the topic away. "Oh nothing. Are you ready now?"

He nodded and turned the gun onto the little wide eyed girl. She struggled against the monsters restraint, keeping an eye on each one. Strong as she was for her age, they still overpowered her.

"Now," Kovarian warned "When you shoot her, you must stand back. Regeneration energy is dangerous to come into contact with. If she begins to regenerate then we must clear the general area. Now Dr. Renfrew, go on."

Without another thought he aimed for the little girls heart and shot.

Kovarian grinned as she saw the faint golden glow of regeneration begin to emanate from Melody Pond's hands. The little girl stared at her palms in shock before glancing up at her caretakers. "What's happening?" she asked afraid and in pain. She stepped towards Madame Kovarian, the closest mother figure she'd ever had, but the woman moved away quickly to the door.

"Everyone leave her here. We'll come check up in a few minutes. By then, most of the regeneration should be complete." She held the door open for a panicky Dr. Renfrew, and the few silents left in the room, and then walked out herself.

"Wait!" Melody cried. She was holding her chest trying to fight the pain. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "please don't leave me!"

"I'll be back dear." Kovarian assured. "In only a few minutes."

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><p><em>I didn't actually want to write this because little girls shouldn't have to go through that kind of stuff, but I figured that that's the kind of evil thing that Madame Kovarian would do for 'progress'.<em>

_Anyways...thanks to all who read this! I hope you like it. =]_


	2. Chapter 2: The Ice Cream Police

_Okay, so chapter two!  
>By the way, regarding the Doctor's timeline, this is right after A Good Man Goes To War. You know, that entire summer that the Doctor spent while Amy waited with Rory in Leadworth for him to find her baby.<em>

_disclaimer: I still don't own Doctor who, and if I were Moffat, my fanfiction that I wrote would be called episodes. If only, if only. =/_

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><p>The night that I ran from an abandoned library into a dark, New York, alley way was the night that everything changed. I sat against a cold building, hiding behind a garbage can. It should have been freezing, but I could hardly tell, the cold brick actually felt good against my skin. Something very weird had happened.<p>

I could still see the glowing gold coming from my hands, it had dimmed down a lot, but was still evident. Even in the corner of my eyes I could see it shining a bit off of my face. It scared me just a bit more than when the spaceman had tried to eat me.

Somehow, when asked by the man in the street, I had known how to do it. Maybe the eye patch lady, Madame Kovarian, had once told me how. She was always telling me things that I would forget until the appropriate moment arrived, this was probably like all of those other times...except I couldn't remember how I'd gotten here

I met the funny man that night. I had heard a sound like an angry cat yowling and hten a trashcan being tossed aside. Peeking up over the one I was hiding behind, I saw someone tall and skinny, with dark, floppy hair, and what looked like a bow tie. The man walked quickly from trashcan to trashcan, occasionally stumbling over his own two feet. He looked in some bins and around others almost frantically. When he was a few meters away from me, he threw a trashcan down in frustration and angrily thrust his hands into the air in defeat. "Why would she bring me here?" he exclaimed. "Obviously I won't find Mel..."

"Sir?" I interrupted, carefully moving from my hiding spot. "Is everything all right?"

He raised a curious eyebrow and stepped toward me. "No. Yes. Uh, no, not really. I'm looking for someone, actually. A little girl, you've probably never met her. She's small, cute as a button," At the word button he tapped my nose. "and probably about your age actually. She's most likely got light brown hair, maybe curly, and it's very possible that she travels by spacesuit." he thought deeply, kneeling down to see me at eye level. He continued to stare at me until I began to wonder if I was still glowing, it had scared that one stranger earlier... I held his stare, refusing to look away until finally, he grinned. "Well, she probably looks like that. Hard to know what someone looks like before you've met them though, yeah?"

I shook my head. "You don't make much sense." I had little room to talk though, just moments before I'd been a street night-light.

He nodded and stood. "I hardly ever do. Well, I'll be seeing you then. Off to save the world and all."

"Let me help you!" I offered. It wasn't hard to tell that this man was lonely. He seemed as if he was only being cheery so a person wouldn't think otherwise, but I had a way with reading people and he was no exception.

He turned around, smiling widely, and ruffled my new hair. The new cowlicks and texture made the action feel different and weird, but I couldn't help but smile back. "Good! I'd love you to help! First, lets get you a bite to eat." He squeezed my cheeks as if to measure them and then opened my mouth to view my teeth. "As I thought, you're starving." He announced. He let go of my mouth and then motioned wtih a flailing hand for me to follow. "Come along; I know a great place downtown that has the best banana splits! Haven't had one of those in a while! You'll like it though, everyone loves bananas!" he continued to chatter on like this, mentioning something about how the "New New York" doesn't have banana splits and other strange topics, until we came up to the ice cream shop he'd spoken so fondly of.

He held the door open for me and I walked in slowly, suddenly feeling suspicious about the surroundings, like I'd seen a ghost. My heart was beating faster, the way it had before I started glowing. Just in case, I reached for his hand to keep him near me, I didn't want to be alone if it happened again, the process wasn't exactly pleasant.

He didn't seem to mind me holding his hand as we walked into the shop. In response he squeezed my hand reassuringly adn then let me order whichever flavor I'd like. I decided to try a banana split, which earned an approving smile from the stranger. He then ordered what I had, but with three more bananas, unpeeled, on the side for later.

"So," We sat down at a table in the far corner. "What's a little girl doing in a scary alley like that?" he asked between bites.

"You're eating your ice cream wrong." I mentioned. He had stirred all of it up so it resembled more of a chocolate banana milkshake than ice cream, and had started slurping it from the bowl as if it were soup.

"Are you the ice cream police? Who told you that there was a right and wrong way to eat ice cream?"

"I'm just smart enough to know." I crossed my arms stubbornly.

"Well," he retorted. "I eat my ice cream the way I like it. The cool way."

He took another sip of his banana split and managed to get the ice cream all over his upper lip, which gave him a chocolate mustache. I laughed.

He grinned back before wiping his mouth off. "Now," he said "Do you have a home? why were you all alone in the alley?"

I tried to hide my resentment at the word 'home'. The closest I had ever come to a home was Graystark Hall, an abandoned orphanage, and I had hated the place. There was never anyone there except for Dr. Renfrew, and he was always writing strange messages in blood red on the walls. Madame Kovarian visited sometimes, but other than that it was empty. It was called an orphanage but it never functioned that way. Orphanages were supposed to have other children inside, just as desperate for someone to find and love them. Graystark Hall was nothing like that, since the first day I remember being there it was empty, only ever me. "I was just taking a walk," i lied. "but then you showed up and I was scared, so I hid."

He shook his head making a 'tsk-tsk' sound. He saw right through my lie, just as quickly as I'd noticed his loneliness. " A little girl like you wouldn't scare so easily, especially not for a funny old man like me. Did you steal something?" he barely paused before answering his own question. "No, stealing would mean that you've most likely got the item on you, but you've only got a high temperature and torn up clothes. Your clothes are an interesting point though...perhaps you've recently been in a fight?" I shook my head as he looked at me suspiciously before continuing. "Why were you really in that alley then?"

The man stared, waiting for an explanation. "I...I..." I bit my lip, wondering what the best thing to say could be. "I ran away tonight." I decided to admit. "From this building that was full of old books and chairs. I can't go back though. They'll hurt me if I do." I scrunched my nose up, trying to remember who 'they' were. I didn't doubt what I'd said at all, but still I felt like I'd missed a big part of my story.

"Interesting. The cat's did say they saw..." he glanced back to me and straightened his bow tie. "What's your name?"


	3. Chapter 3: Memories

_Hello and thanks to everyone who alerted and commented! I hope you enjoy!_

_-I still don't own doctor who, the characters and story mostly isn't mine._

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><p>"Melody," I sloshed around my untouched banana split.<p>

"Do you know what's cool Melody?" he slurped a bit of his ice cream again while keeping a suspicious eye on me. "I'm looking for a little girl with the exact same name. Melody Pond. She's my friends daughter, got stolen by these mean... things called the silence. Actually, stolen by a woman, but the silence may be behind it all. They probably are, at least if..."

"What are the silence?" I interrupted again.

His smile widened, but it didn't seem to be from my question. "No idea. Can't remember a thing."

"That's stupid." I said. The word felt almost perfect to say against my new teeth. "How can you blame the silence if you can't remember anything about them?" The man was nice and funny, but he didn't seem very smart. "The good idea is to..." I couldn't continue because I was overcome by a coughing fit. It helped to ease the dull pain in my chest, but when I looked up, the mans eyes were wide.

The golden light which had changed me earlier came out of my mouth and was floating away. I kept my eyes on him, afraid that he would run away now that he knew, but instead he did the opposite. "I thought so, but then it didn't make sense... it can't be," he raised an eyebrow and jumped from his chair over to me. "Ow!" I cried as he pulled a strand of hair from my head. "Sorry," he mumbled.

He sniffed the strand, scrunched his nose up in frustration and then leaned over, pulling my entire head to his nose. After that, he grabbed my chin, forcing me to look him directly in the eye. He took out a metal contraption and scanned me with it, still intently staring at me. The piece of metal stopped making it's high pitch sound and he finally let go of my chin to examine the thing.

"You're weird." I rubbed my head where he had taken the hair, finding it hard to hide my smile. He hadn't left me yet, he knew what he saw and still wasn't leaving.

He sat on his knees, continuing to watch the metal. "Of course..." he murmered. "The Time Vortex, and they altered the DNA even more, anything to get her as close to a Time Lord as possible. You're Melody Pond!"

"What?" I crossed my arms. "Of course I am!" I'd figured that he had known the moment he'd said he was looking for a girl who might be traveling by spacesuit.

"And you're alive!" he pulled me into a tight hug.

I pushed him away. "What do you mean 'alive'? Of course I'm alive!" I was becoming quite agitated.

"Exactly." he chuckled like a mad man and pointed at my shirt. "Your blouse is covered in blood. I noticed in the alley but was waiting for you to bring it up. Never doing that again." he clapped his hands together. "Now, someone shot you in the chest, right at your heart. You should be dead, but judging by hair color and obvious pigment changes, you regenerated instead. Hmm, I wonder if you've got two hearts as well, normally you can't regenerate with only one..." he continued to rant on, like he'd done about the icecream, but I decided to tune him out. The cashier wouldn't stop staring at us, so I sent my worst deathglare that I could with my new face. I figured she'd gotten the message.

I pushed my icecream away and looked down at my chest. The blood was definitely there, and it explained the dull pains I'd been having earlier. I felt the area where the blood was thickest to find no wound at all. And I couldn't remember anything.

"...quite frankly, I thought it would be harder than this, finding you, but here you are!"

I shook my head as too many emotions filled my mind at once. "Are you stupid? What are you talking about?" he never seemed to shut up.

"You!" he kissed my head enthusiastically. "You don't look much like Rory or Amy anymore, but that's okay. Looks don't matter, just wait until I bring you back to them, your parents!"

I stepped back then, eyes narrowed. "No!" I yelled. "Listen sir, I don't know who you are, or why you know me, but my parents gave me away to Dr. Renfrew and Madame Kovarian. I don't want to see them ever!" I stomped my foot for emphasis but he still looked like he'd won the lottery.

"But you're all alone on the streets. You're just a little girl." he looked as if he knew I'd come along, like what I'd just said didn't even matter.

"I can manage. I'm smarter than your average eight year old, I'll have you know!"

"Oh, I know." he said, "I don't doubt that, but I can't leave you here alone." He grabbed a hold of my hand and we started toward the exit. "Your parent's love you Melody." he tried to convince. "They never gave you away, that was just..."

He suddenly stopped walking, causing me to collide into his behind before glancing over to see the cause. "I thought the planet was told to kill you all on sight!" he accused, refusing to break eye contact with any of the monsters.

At the sight of them, memories began to flood in. The reason Dr. Renfrew always wrote strange messages on the walls, why the spaceman had tried to eat me, and who had ordered to shoot me while the monsters had held me still. All at once I wanted to throw my self at them and scratch their eyes out for what they'd done, but the stranger squeezed my hand reassuringly.

"You will leave the girl with us!" It demanded.

He shook his head, never breaking his gaze. "You wish!" he pulled me protectively behind him. "She's actually kind of important. Not to you lot, but to Amy and Rory and Me. Why would I leave her?"

The monster stood up straighter, the way it always does when it's about to kill someone. I had only ever seen it twice, once when a woman accidentally walked into the orphanage and had asked me why I was so scared, and another when Kovarian had decided to show me what could happen if I ever tried to get away from her.

I pulled on the mans sleeve frantically. "We need to run," I siad. He kepts his eyes locked on the enemies as their mouths began to form an O. "Sir!" I pulled harder on his sleeve. "Run!" he reluctantly looked down at me and then confusion registered across his face. He held out his wrist to glance at his watch and whistled.

"Oh, look at that!" he backed up, right through the door like he couldn't even see what was at the doorway. "I have to go, but I promise I'll come back. Trust me Melody Pond, you haven't seen the last of me!" he waved goodbye as I stared at the monster that he had long forgotten.

Once he was out of my peripheral vision, I sighed knowing that there was really no way to escape them. More memories of all the times I'd tried to run away continued to come back. Not once had I actually succeeded. Instead of running this time, I stepped forward. "Why do I remember your ugly faces only when I see you?" I asked rhetorically.

"Regeneration worked beautifully..." Madame Kovarian Stepped through the doors with a smile. "She's got a bit of an attitude now, but we could most certainly find a way to use that to an advantage."


	4. Chapter 4: Parties

_Yay! Another chapter! I liked writing this one because young Amy and Rory are fun. =D  
>Also, who remembers way back to series 5 episode 1: The Eleventh Hour? While the Doctor was talking about missing something in the corner of his eye, the camera shows the two doors at the end of the hallway (one of which we know contains Prisoner Zero), and it also blatantly shows a second stairwell leading up to who knows what! That's pretty much how this entire thing started, because I've been wanting to know if Moffat will ever tell us what's up with that stairwell (and if it has any connections to the Lodger?).<br>Okay, anyways, carry on! Thanks for reading and alerting and stuff! It means a super lot! I hope you enjoy! _

_continuing onto more important things: Doctor Who, I do not own. _

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><p>Madame Kovarian glanced around herself in satisfaction. The perception filter worked so well that the Pond family would never notice the extra room created at the top of the staircase across the way of little Amelia's room. Even the observant Amy herself wouldn't be able to see it.<p>

She didn't like the plan at first, it would be so hard to monitor the child when in this location, but the Silence were right. The best way to teach Melody of the Doctor's evil was to let her see it first hand, and what better show to give her, than that of her own mother's long wait for that arrogant man to return. Twelve years ought to be enough time for Melody to see and understand.

She couldn't tell the girl that she had sent her here to see her mother suffer though. Melody wouldn't respond well to that. So the second part of the plan was completely Kovarian's idea. Melody had never quite understood why her parents wouldn't love her and had 'given' her away. All that Madame Kovarian had to do was plant one simple idea into little Melody's mind, and her plan would play out to perfection.

It was simple really, all she had to be done was to tell the girl that by taking her to the small, pitiful, town of Leadworth to grow up with her parents, they would learn to love her before they have her, and then would decide to keep her. Of course, she knew, it would never happen, but Melody was a very easy and optimistic subject to convince.

And sometimes the Silence really did have brilliant ideas. Their cunning ways of manipulating those around them always helped too. With the perception filter in place, and the creatures keeping watch to fix what few mistakes the girl may make, the Ponds really never would know that their own daughter had lived with them all along...

Madame Kovarian grinned as she gave me the key to my new 'room'. I looked at my surroundings, only seeing the boring things like a bed and a writing desk in the far corner. She said she was giving me my independence, that I didn't need Dr. Renfrew, or her, as much anymore. I couldn't lie and say that I didn't like it. It would be like being a grown up and having my own house, but when it came to decorating, the woman was bloody terrible at it.

"Thanks," I mumbled. She showed me the dresser,only wood, where my clothes were placed and neatly folded. Then she led me to the closet that was without any kind of monsters. The walls were a boring white and there weren't anything particularly special about the lighting either. I sighed, nothing cool about anything, and no monsters to blow up, how boring. At least at Greystark Hall there was different rooms to explore and Dr. Renfrew's crazy behavior made things interesting, in this new room, I couldn't imagine thinking up anything fun to do. "I appreciate it and all, but Madame... what do I do for entertainment?"

She chuckled at me and then pointed downstairs. "Little Melody, dear, I've taught you to be very observant. You'll figure a way." Then she quickly kissed me on the forehead, which always felt wrong, no matter how many times she did it or what body I was in, and then pressed a button on her vortex manipulator. She was gone with a short zap!

I crossed my arms and flopped onto the bed. She was always doing this to me, leaving me to solve puzzles, to do things on my own. Even the times she took me to the market or the park were never simple. There was always a test of some sort involved. Well, this time I just wouldn't try to do it. It was actually very amusing to think of the look on her face when she realized I disobeyed her. She even might try to "ground" me, whatever that meant.

The longer I sat on the bed though, the more aware of my surroundings I became. The room was still stupid, but from what I could hear, the floor was becoming very interesting.

Of course I knew that it wasn't really the floor that was giving off the sounds of people talking and laughing and music playing in the distance. It was actually the Pond family from downstairs. My family.

Madame Kovarian had explained to me that this room was apart of Amy Pond's house. She said that I need to get to know her, well Amy and Rory both, because my future depends on it. They were my parents, and the people throwing the party downstairs were Amy's parents. Kovarian had never told me when or how I should meet them all, and now seemed better than any. With a sudden jerk I jumped off of the bed, and headed out the door and then down the stairs. I only turned around once to see if she had told the truth. I smiled, the door was hardly noticeable, someone could only see it if they were looking really hard for it. They really would never know I was here.

The party got louder as I came to the bottom of the first staircase. There was music coming from the room off to the right, the smell of steaks on the grill wafting through an open window, and a boy a bit shorter than me, from the looks of it, standing guard at the bottom, in desperate need of a hair cut. "Hello!" I said, he jumped in surprise and turned to face me. I waved. "What're you doing at the bottom of the stairs? Isn't there fun stuff to do around here?"

His eyes were as wide as saucers as he glanced around nervously. "What were you doing up there?"

I shrugged. "Just havin' a look. Can't see any harm in that right?"

After a moments hesitation he nodded. I crossed my arms. "You seem really nervous, what's the matter?" He kept looking around everywhere and whenever a grown up would walk near one of the doors he'd hold his breath until they'd leave. I didn't think that not breathing would help them not notice him, but who knew, maybe he was some crazy bloke who thought holding your breath could turn you invisible.

"Nothing, I'm just... nothing." He explained, he still was panicking about something.

"Okay..." I skipped the last three steps, no problem, and then pointed behind him in terror. "Oh my God! Who's that?"

The boy turned around so fast, his overly long hair fanned out around his face. "Where?" he asked in a panic. I burst out laughing as he realized that no one was there. "Oi, what's wrong with you?" I asked between panting breaths.

He opened his mouth to reply, then only shook his head and motioned at the door he was watching so carefully. "I guess your mums out there? She's probably looking for you."

"Rory! They're done, but mum isn't too happy..." A redheaded girl came crashing through a door leading to what must have been the kitchen. She was going too fast to slow down though, and her tray of... fish fingers fell to the floor with a big clang!

She groaned and then bent down to pick them up. I kneeled over to help. "Fish fingers and... custard?" I asked as she grabbed the last of the fish.

"Trust me, it's as disgusting as it sounds!" Rory sighed. Amy sent him a glare before turning to me. "No, it's good. The raggedy man ate it."

I stood up as Amy adjusted the tray to balance the carton of custard and the fish fingers. "It sounds delicious to me!" I grinned.

"Good!" Rory said "Make her eat the gross fish then."

She rolled her eyes and handed the tray to Rory. "She can't be the Raggedy Doctor, Rory! She's not a boy."

She started towards the stairs then. "Come on then, before your dad notices his best shirts missing." Rory swallowed and then nodded. "He'll beat me if he finds out." he muttered.

"Shut up, Rory. You're so dramatic!" She turned to me then. "Are you coming? We need an extra person to go to jail after the Doctor saves everyone."

"Is he an alien?" I asked. I really hoped that my mum would say yes. Even when I was Melody Pond from Graystark Hall, scaredy-cat of everything, I'd thought aliens were cool. That at least hadn't changed through regeneration. "Of course he is, he's got a time machine! Only aliens can travel in time." Amy explained.

I giggled at what she'd said. "Plenty of people can time travel, it doesn't take some special spaceman to do it!" Rory sent me a 'you shouldn't have said that' look, as Amy eyed me suspiciously before starting up the stairs. I shrugged my shoulders and then jumped every other step up to her. "I'm Mel..s, by the way."

Amy continued to look me up and down before nodding in approval. "I'm Amelia Pond. I haven't seen you here before, are you new?"

"I guess you could say that!" I laughed as Amy...no, Amelia, grinned back.


	5. Chapter 5: The Stolen Watch

_Sorry it took so long to update! I've been really busy with school recently and haven't had time to do normal things that I like like writing. But here, finally, is the next part. Yay! And I promise that we'll get a visit from a certain someone in the next chapter. =]_

_I don't own Doctor Who, or the characters. All props to Steven Moffat._

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><p>I stopped beating against my mums window and flattened myself against the second story ledge as much as possible when I heard Mr. Abernathy approach the house. He knocked three times before someone answered.<p>

"Hello, Mr. Abernathy. How's the day been?" Agustus asked.

"I'll tell you Agustus!" he said angrily. "Not well! I've spent the entirety of my day protecting my shop from a little pick pocket, hiding inside your house! Bring her out here! I want my watch back!"

I glanced down at the fob watch gripped tightly between my fingers. Like the man ever had a chance of getting it back, it wasn't even his! He'd most likely stolen it from someone too!

"Now wait just a moment, Abernathy!" Amelia's dad warned. "Not a single person in this household has taken a bloody watch! I won't stand for such accusations being made against my daughter.

"No!" the shopkeeper interrupted. "I'm not accusing Amelia. It's her little friend! The girl! I saw her run into your house."

Both adults became quiet as Mr. Abernathy's words sank in. Then my dear old granddad broke the silence. "Rory? Oh he's not a girl, his hair's just in need of a cut." I had to cover my mouth to muffle the sound of my giggles.

"No," he said again. "Not Williams. He's a good boy, he wouldn't take my watch. It's the other girl your daughters been hanging around."

"Do you mean Mels?" Amy's voice came from nowhere.

"Mels... yes! Her. Do you know where she is Amelia?

There was a pause before she answered. "How should I know? She wasn't at school today."

Mr. Abernathy growled in frustration. "She took a watch that was very important to me, Amelia."

Amy didn't take lightly to the way Mr. Abernathy spoke to her, like she was a baby incapable of understanding him. "Mels would never take your watch, she's not here Mr. Abernathy. Sorry." then the door was slammed, hopefully in the mans face. "I'm going to bed." her voice traveled through the closed door, slightly muffled but still able to be heard.

"Amelia Jessica Pond!" Agustus cried. "You come back here this instant and apologize to Mr. Abernathy!" the door opened again. "I'm sorry sir," he chuckled. "Children, you just can't control them."

Mr. Abernathy sighed. "Right, well, if that girl turn up with my watch, you tell me, Mr. Pond."

"Of course." he replied half hearted. Then Mr. Abernathy left.

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><p>"Are you gonna let me in?" I asked after Amelia had searched most of the places she'd figured I could hid in her room. She jumped when she heard me, then turned around to face the window.<p>

It was getting cold outside and I was becoming tired of standing on the stupid ledge. My fingers were cramping from holding on so tightly, and Mr. Abernathy was gone now, so there was no reason for me to still be there in the first place. If the window hadn't have been locked I would have been able to get into the room myself. I could have broken in too, but I wasn't feeling like shattering the glass when I stood the chances of falling two stories down.

Amelia, which I had learned recently didn't like to be called Amy (yet), came to let me in. I scooted over to one side so that when the right window opened out it wouldn't push me off. Once opened she reached for my arm and jerked me inside. "Mels! What were you doing there?"

"I climbed." I shrugged and flopped down on her bed. "Nevermind that. Look at this!" I held out the watch and was greeted with a glare.

"That's Mr. Abernathy's." She stated.

"No," I grinned. "It's not. Come here and I'll show you."

Amelia crossed her arms, but curiosity won the best of her. She took the watch from my hands to examine. "Look at the designs on it." I said.

She did and furrowed a brow. "So? What's so special about that? They look like normal designs."

I shook my head. "Nah, it's alien, I think. Some kind of language by the looks of it."

Amelia studied it more, turning it in her fingers, opening and closing it. "How do you know?" she asked skeptically.

I sat up, searching my mind for the right answer. Somehow I was positive that that watch had an old alien language on it, but there had to be some time when I could pinpoint from past knowledge why I thought that. "I don't know, just a whim I guess." It felt like the answer was at the tip of my tongue but I couldn't access it.

She tossed the watch back to me. " I bet the Doctor would know." I rolled my eyes. It had only been a few days since I'd first met her and Rory, and I'd learned almost right away: she never shuts up about this Doctor man, and, for some reason, she doesn't go by Amy yet.

Everytime she'd mention him I couldn't help but wish I were somewhere else. Obviously he wasn't real or he would have come back when he had said. The crack she sometimes talked about wasn't even real, I had looked, her wall didn't have any. She was so obsessed with him that it got annoying. At first I thought her stories had been cool, but eventually it got old. These cracks, and him obviously were only a dream she had had. I couldn't understand why it was so hard for her to let go.

"Mind if I stay the night tonight?" I asked, changing the subject.

She looked at the floor like she'd be able to see her parents through the carpet, and then glanced at me. "Why?"

I tried to formulate a good enough lie as quickly as possible. "Because, if Mr. Abernathy goes to my parents, they'll be mad. I don't want to sit through that lecture."

Amelia nodded. "okay, but you have to go to school with me and Rory tomorrow. You said you'd go today and you didn't."

"That's where you two were all day?" I laughed. "I only went to the antique store because I was bored and couldn't find you two!"

"Nope. We were at school." she yawned "do you have any nighties?"

I shook my head and scooted over on the bed to make room for her. "nah, I can sleep in this." I said.

"Okay." Amelia nodded. "We've got to get up early tomorrow, so goodnight Mels."

"Goodnight." I grinned, although I still stayed sitting up. My mum might have brushed off the watch as something that was only of slight interest, but I wanted to know how Mr. Abernathy had gotten it. Maybe he had found it, and therefore really did think that it was his. But my guess was more along the lines that he'd bought it off of someone else. And if he'd bought it off of someone else, that meant that the person he'd bought it from probably knew a lot about the watch. Crazy ideas began to swim in my head as I finally laid down to try to sleep. If I could find the person who had sold the watch to Mr. Abernathy then that person could teach me about it. Learning an alien language would be cool.


	6. Chapter 6: Waiting

_Okay, so I lied. I didn't mean to, but... I did. I said that a certain someone would be visiting in this chapter, and originally I had meant that. But while writing this, I realized it'd make more sense to split into two separate chapters. So, no Doctor in this chapter. :/_

_also, I don't own doctor who. =]_

_also, also, who's super excited about Christmas being so close to almost here! I am. Only one week more! =D_

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><p>"Mels... Mels... Mels!"<p>

"Ouch!" I cried opening one eye to see what was going on. Amelia was standing across the room with her arms crossed. I threw the shoe back at her and pulled the covers over my head. My actions were met with a growl.

Amelia came over to the bed and pulled at the covers. "Get. Up! You said that you'd come to school today. You promised! Everyone thinks I'm crazy because they don't believe anything about the Doctor, and they think that you're just imaginary too! We're going to be late Mels. Get up!"

"Might as well be imaginary!" I rolled over and placed my forearm over my eyes. "Sort of dropped from the sky didn't I?" I teased. "I'll go to school tomorrow. What's the big deal anyway?"

"You have five minutes to get ready, or we're late. And I'm not leaving until you come along. I'll wait all day if I have to."

I laughed but finally sat up. "No you won't! You've got to meet Roooory so you two can walk together!"

"Rory can get over it." She crossed her arms again and turned away to hide the slight blush creeping up her cheeks.

"Okay fine!" I jumped out of the covers and off the bed. "Am I supposed to wear any certain clothes?"

Amelia seemed to analyze me from head to toe before she nodded. "Here," she went to her dresser and pulled out a white shirt, a red sweater, and black pants. "we have to wear these. And we have to wear our hair up too. Your hair is really curly, do you ever brush it out?"

"Hmm." I ran my fingers through my hair, still not sure how I was supposed to tame it. Despite the amount of time that had passed since I'd regenerated, I still didn't know if there was really anything I could do with my hair. Kovarian often put it into a ponytail, but brushing it was painful. My hair tangled too easily. "It's a mess." I agreed.

She shrugged. "It's stupid to make us wear this anyways. I think you look fine, but the teachers wouldn't accept it."

"Sounds awful! Why would I want to go to school?"

Amelia smiled. "You're my friend Mels. That's why. Friends do anything for each other. Now get dressed."

Within five minutes I was dressed and downstairs with Amelia, ready to head over to Rory's and then we'd all walk to the school together. She seemed a bit excited that I was going, and although school did not sound like something that I ever would be interested in doing, it made me feel good that, so far, she liked me enough to want me to go places with her.

"Now everyone will know that I wasn't lying." She said as she pushed the front door open. "They don't think you're real, you know. If I show them that you are my friend, then maybe they'll believe me about the Doctor too."

"Why do you need them to believe you anyways? They sound like a bunch of bloody idiots!"

She didn't reply to that. I stuck my hands into my pockets and then stopped in my tracks. "Wait a second! I forgot something, I've got to go back!"

Amelia turned to stare at me. "Forgot what? You didn't bring anything last night, and you're wearing your shoes."

I was already halfway back to the house. "Just go ahead without me! I'll catch up. Just gotta find the watch!" I didn't hear what she said after that because the Pond's front door slammed behind me.

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><p>I sprinted up the stairs as quickly as I could and took a sharp turn towards Amelia's room. I almost payed no mind to the open door, but I did remember that It had been shut when I'd left. Glancing into the room I easily spotted the intruder.<p>

"When did you plan to tell me about this, Melody?" Madame Kovarian was standing by Amelia's bed, looking all business as usual and still wearing that ridiculous eye patch. She was holding the watch I had found the night before in her hand, letting it dangle down and catch the light every once in a while.

"I found it last night madame!" I explained.

"From who?" she asked. I raised an eyebrow. I didn't really understand why Kovarian seemed so interested in the watch. It was cool, but she'd never cared about the things I'd found before. "Mr. Abernathy, Madame. He's the shop owner from across the street."

She turned the watch between her fingers, deep in thought. "I see." she said. "Melody, has Amy explained to you who the Doctor is?"

I rolled my eyes. "Of course she has. she never really shuts up about him. He's not even real! Can I have my watch back now?"

Kovarian made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head. "My dear, the Doctor is very real. and he's very evil. If you haven't noticed, he's already ruined your mother's childhood. He's no hero like she thinks, he's the worst villain out there."

I sighed. "Okay, so he's real. Can I have the watch now?"

She shook her head again and then placed the watch in one of her pockets. "I've got to go now Melody, but I'll be back. And we'll learn more about this then." Then she put some coordinates into her vortex manipulator and was gone in a crack.

I growled. All I'd wanted was to grab the watch to show Rory. He was quieter than Amelia, but he'd think it was cool. Now I was going to be late for school, and according to my mum, that wasn't good.


	7. Chapter 7: Planet 5

_I had this Christmas chapter all planned out, and I had thought that by the time of Christmas I would have the parts leading up to it already written, but I'm a waste when it comes to managing time and I didn't write to that part yet. Not even close. So the Christmas chapter will have to come later in the year when it's not even Christmas! (oh the horror!) Anyway... this chapter is a bit longer than the others, I was thinking about splitting it into two chapters but decided not to. So here you guys go! The next chapter!_

_disclaimer: The Doctor and other characters are not mine. They belong to the BBC and Steven Moffat, the man who fed off of all our tears at the end of the Christmas Special Sunday. And if our tears do keep him youthful, well, at the rate he's going, he is going to be forever young. :P_

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><p>The two didn't wait for me, not that I had expected them to. According to Rory, Amelia is very Scottish, which means she's got a short temper and hardly any patience. She can wait all night for a fake man in a funny blue box but there's no way she'd wait an extra minute for anyone or anything else. Rory blushed a lot after he'd told me that, said that he didn't want me to tell her what he'd said or she'd hit him. The truth was that she probably would have.<p>

It didn't bother me too much. They'd given me directions to the school, and as long as I could recognize the landmarks along the way I'd find it just fine. It was boring walking alone, but I had told them to go on without me.

While taking the path that Amelia had said to take I couldn't help but think about Madame Kovarian. Before I had regenerated I thought that she was the only good person I'd ever known. Dr. Renfrew was always crazy, so I couldn't count on him to understand a thing, but for a while I had been convinced that Kovarian really understood me at times.

Now was different. I could remember more and more of her visits and she always seemed so focused on teaching me how to defend myself from the 'most evil man in the universe'. I never thought that she was any fun, but she was beginning to push over to boring. I didn't really want to learn these things, even if they did seem to help when hiding from stupid Mr. Abernathy. She'd also taken my watch, something that made me like her even less then what I used to.

That's what I was really worried about. What did she want with the watch? Could she read the symbols on it? I was almost positive that they were letters or a language of some sort, and it seemed like Madame Kovarian knew. If that were true, then was she going to teach me how to read those letters? Or was there something else about the watch that made it so important that she had to teach it to me. I could almost guarantee that it had something to do with my "training" whether I was willing to participate or not.

I was so lost in thought on the way that I almost didn't recognize the crazy man in a bow tie leaning up against one of the houses. I started to walk right past him but then stopped and turned around. He was grinning.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

He held out his hands like he was shocked by my question. "What? A simple hello couldn't work. You're so nosy you know?"

I smiled. "Hello...what are you doing here?"

For a split second his grin faded, but he quickly recovered. I don't think he thought I saw. He pointed back behind him where I saw a blue box with Police Public Call Box written at the top. I took a step towards it as he continued on. "My...the old girl brought me here. Funny how she'll do that."

"This is like the space ship the Doctor has!" I noted, coming up to its sides and running a finger against the door. "Same color and everything!" I looked back at him, eyebrows raised. Was this man the Doctor? He had mentioned bringing me back to my parents, how else could he know them if he wasn't?

The mans face momentarily filled with panic before something seemed to cross his mind. "Doctor? Who's this Doctor fellow? Never heard of him before." He held out a hand and looked down at me expectantly. I grasped his hand and was suddenly being moved all about by his energetic handshake. "I'm John Smith, definitely not some Doctor. I wouldn't even let a doctor get near my ship. Now, where did you say we are?

I laughed and turned to open the doors. "I didn't John. Is there a library in here?"

"Of course there's a ... wait! No, no, no. Nobody opens these doors but me. No one can!" he placed a protective hand against the doors, blocking my entrance.

I crossed my arms. "That's rubbish! What do you mean? No one can come in? Or you don't let them in?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but then decided against that and moved his hand out of the way. "Just hold on a moment. I've got the key..."

I pulled on one of the doors and it opened without any difficulties. John was back to staring open mouthed outside. "What?" I asked.

"How did you do that?" he asked. "She always needs a key to get in. It's the rules, rule number..."

"the instructions are on the door aren't they?" I smiled at his bewildered look. "I just followed the instructions."

He once again seemed speechless but then let a half smile creep across his face. "Now I see a little bit why she's nice to you." he said skipping into the bigger-on-the-inside blue box.

"Whoa," I managed, spinning around in circles so that I might be able to see everything at once.

"I know!" he hopped up to the middle of the ship where the controls seemed to be. "So, Melody, where'd you like to go?"

I sat down on a chair with some bounce in it by the console. "Go? What do you mean go?"

"This is a time machine!" he raised his hands up high and twisted around to give proof. "We can go anywhere!"

"Just like the Doctor!" I jumped up and stood next to him.

"yeah, just like him!" he laughed "Although I'm much more cooler-er."

"Cooler-er isn't a word." I stood on my tiptoes to see all the different controls. They looked a bit like a child's play thing if you asked me, but the box was so big on the inside that they had to actually work somehow. "What does this one do?" I asked pulling a lever towards me.

"Ahhh, let's leave the driving to me for now. Okay?" he quickly put the lever back in it's place and then smiled down at me. "Oh, I know the perfect planet. Tons of people... fish people really, visit it all the time!"

"Fish people?" I sat back down and watched as he began to run around the console pulling random levers and pushing big red buttons. "Fish people." he affirmed pushing one last button and then the space ship shook and we were traveling through time and space. It was the greatest feeling in the world.

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><p>As John's ship tumbled through space it became clear to me that I had let Amelia down once again. She only ever wanted for me to go to school with her so that she could prove to everyone that she wasn't crazy. I wasn't even going to see her ever again to tell her how sorry I was because John's driving was going to kill me.<p>

"How do you steer this thing?" I tried to reach the console but John jumped in my way, letting go of the levers and things that he was pulling. "That'll stop us from reaching our destination. Don't push that one!"

My eyes widened. "but we want to stop don't we? You're going to kill us if we don't!"

He turned to stare at me, his hair bouncing as the ship seemed to smash around. "Who said I was going to kill anything?"

"We're crashing!" I tried reaching for the button he said wold stop it all again but he picked me up and sat me on the chair. The ship made another lurch and he went tumbling to the side.

"We aren't crashing!" he exclaimed "I know my TARDIS and this is not crashing!"

I glared for a moment when John said the word TARDIS. Something about the word just struck a nerve to me, it reminded me of something that Madame Kovarian had told me once, but I couldn't remember what it was she'd said. I guess the monsters I sometimes have nightmares about were there when it happened.

He seemed to notice my glare and gulped as the ship, TARDIS I guess, finally came to a calm stop. "That's amazing." He finally said, eyes flitting around a bit before resting back on me. "You're only eight and already can tell when I'm lying." he popped me on the nose and then skipped to the doors, pulling me behind by the hand. "I thought it'd taken you years to figure out. Wibbly wobbly time lines and all, but you're just clever from the start aren't you?"

"What are you talking about?" I pulled my hand away so that I could cross my arms and look threatening. He laughed. "The truth is, it takes six people, Time Lords really, to fly the TARDIS. She's always banging about because I've got to do everything, so technically she is crashing a bit every time."

"I bet I could fly her." I grinned, waiting to see how much he'd overreact at that statement.

"Maybe when you're older." he patted me on the head and looked down at me. "Are you ready for this planet?"

"The fish people planet." I giggled.

"yeah, fish people." He opened the doors and looked at me with a goofy grin on his face, waiting for my reaction.

"Um..." I looked to him and back to the 'planet' but was definitely not convinced that we had traveled through space to get here. There was grass on the ground and trees randomly placed here and there. Nothing too special about that, it looked like any other place you could visit on earth. I was not impressed. "Where are?"

He was still grinning from ear to ear when he finally answered. "Well, names don't matter. Especially when they're long boring ones like this planet! Tourist call it Planet Five!"

I looked back out again, still trying to pick things that would make the area any different from a regular place. "Planet Five? Where are the fish people?"

John peered outside of the doors and then glanced down at me. "Hmm, I don't know. Want to take a look?"

I sighed but nodded. He motioned for me to walk out first. After giving him one last look that showed how disappointed I was, I took a step out of the blue space ship.

What came as a shock was that the moment I stepped out of the TARDIS I couldn't get my feet on the ground. I began floating up higher and higher until John grabbed my ankle and pulled me down to his level. "does this place have zero gravity?" I asked, looking around amazed now.

"Yeah!" he did a quick somersault in the air to show off. "that's why fish people love it. No air, which they don't need, they've got those tank...things, and zero gravity! It's easier than swimming!"

I laughed as I "swam" around the TARDIS. "This is so cool!" I shouted.

"I know!" he called back.

When John decided that it was time to go back to the time machine I sat on his chair again, wiped out. "That was so much fun!" I said beaming. "There's no way you could be the Doctor now!" I placed my hands over my mouth in a hurry.

John stopped whatever he was doing and kneeled down in front of me. "Melody, what... what do you mean by that?"

I let my hand slide and shook my head. "Just that the Doctor hurts everyone he meets eventually somehow. Madame Kovarian tells me that my mom is a perfect example, she waited thirteen years for him to return, and when he did, she had me..." I swallowed then, "I thought today when I saw the TARDIS that you were the Doctor, but I think that you're a lot nicer than the Doctor ever could be. That's all." Then I jumped away from the seat, unable to stand the way John seemed to keep staring off into the distance . He seemed so sad and I didn't like him like that, he wasn't funny when he was sad. "Will you let me drive her now? I know I can!" I headed towards the console, wishing that I hadn't let those things about the Doctor stumble out of my mouth.

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><p><em>Thanks again to everyone who reviewed and story alerted! You guys are awesome!<em>


	8. Chapter 8: Lousy Sleepover

_Here's the next chapter with Rory in it! Nothing much really happens in this chapter, I guess it's just something to help the story move along. Anyway, thanks for all story alerts and whatnot. =]_

_and I still don't own Doctor Who, although I do have a Doctor Who Poster... if that counts? haha _

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><p>Rory Williams suddenly awoke with a shock as his semi-rude friend fell on top of him. With a growl she punched him in the face and rolled off of him. Rory held his nose and sat up with only the thought that he never meant "semi-rude" when talking about her. No, Mels was completely evil, he still couldn't figure why Amelia liked her so much.<p>

"Did you fall off the bed Mels?" Rory's voice was nasally, like he had the flu, due to his hurt nose. Mels didn't break it, but it would form a bruise.

Mels rolled her eyes as Amelia dashed across her room and began frantically examining her wall. "No Rory, I just figured the floor felt nicer and you deserved a bloody good punch in the face!"

"Oh," Rory didn't feel like fighting with her, she hated him anyway. "Okay," she rolled her eyes again and then they both turned their attention to Amelia.

"Where's the crack? I know that there was a crack!"

"Why did you clock me in the face and knock me off the bed?" Mels accused. Rory made a personal note never to mess with Mels when she was tired. She was more grumpy than usual.

Amelia only stared back at Mels before she turned back to the wall to explain. "There was a crack in my wall! The Doctor said he would fix it!" Mels growled again.

Rory had noticed from earlier on that Mels grew highly annoyed with his best friend whenever her Raggedy Doctor was mentioned. She liked dressing up and playing the silly games Amelia was always insisting on doing, but any other time she didn't seem to like it. Rory knew that Amelia was a bit obsessed with this man, but sometimes he couldn't stop himself from believing her. She'd shown him the ruined shed in the garden, the Pond's had believed it was just the wind but Amelia had insisted othwise and Rory knew that wind couldn't cause distruction like that. Mels couldn't be convinced as easily though.

Amelia glared at Mels for her disapproval and then turned to Rory, someone she knew would listen to the story no matter what. "I had that dream again, that he came back. He said he'd come back and that he'd..."

"For Christs sake Amelia! There is no crack and he's certainly never coming for you! Just grow up!" Mels crossed her arms in frustration and stomped her foot.

"Don't say that Mels!" Rory shouted. He went to Amelia who was suddenly beginning to tear up. He'd never seen her cry and it made the young introverted boy very uncomfortable, but he pulled her into a tight hug anyway. "Maybe the Doctor fixed the crack a long time ago, when you were asleep. Or maybe he did come back, and you forgot." He felt inadequate in trying to comfort her but it seemed to do some good, she rubbed the tears away at least.

As Rory that last sentence, Mels became rigid. She unfolded her arms and stared at the two with a question across her face neither one could comprehend. She then glanced at her feet muttering something about "So much can be forgotten..." she looked up at Amelia. "I'm so sorry Amy, I really am." There was a thump sound coming from the roof, they all glanced up in wonder of what it was. Amelia's bedroom door abruptly opened and the two children pulled away from each other quickly. Rory was blushing. He couldn't let _anyone_ know that he hugged Amelia Pond. He wasn't even sure if he liked the idea of Mels seeing them hug. Kids picked fun at him enough at school for only being _friends_ with girls!

"Amelia, what's wrong?" Agustus asked. Amelia's parents could see the tears drying on their daughters face.

"Excuse me!" Mels cried. "Coming through, just got to use the loo!" Mels peered one last time over her shoulder before the parents parted to let her through and she left the room.

Their eyes met their daughter's once again. "Amelia, what happened? We heard a thump, and then crying."

Amelia was quiet for quite some time as she debated whether she should tell her parents the truth or not. So far Rory was the only one to even partially believe her about the Doctor, and one thing she wanted more than anything was for her parents to believe her too. and because Rory knew how badly she wanted them to believe, he knew what she'd say before she even said it. "The Doctor said he'd come back and take me with him, but he's still not here, and the crack is gone now." She said it so very calmly and confidently that Rory hoped, of course for her sake, that they might actually believe her this time, but he figured they wouldn't.

It was easy to see the look of disappointment and sadness cross her parents faces. Mr. Pond looked at his wife and she nodded. "We have to." she said.

"Have to what?" Amelia questioned.

Mrs. Pond shook her head. "We'll worry about it tomorrow darling. For now, you both need to get back to sleep, it's late."

The two nodded and after her parents left, Amelia and Rory got settled back into their beds, Rory's made uncomfortably on the floor, and Amelia's obviously her own.

"Rory?" Amelia asked as he was just about to fall to sleep. He prepared himself for a serious question he might not know how to answer. "Yeah?"

"Did Mels call me Amy again?"

Rory grinned and nodded. Since they first met Mels had slipped every now and then and had called her "Amy". They weren't sure where it came from, but it definitely got a glare or two from Amelia every now and then. "Yeah, I think so. Why does she say that sometimes?"

"I don't know..." She admitted "I kind of like it though, Amy, it's much less of a fairytale name."

"It's not so bad." Rory sighed. He didn't know how to tell her that he liked her fairytale name. That would be too weird, even if they were what Amelia called "Best Friends".


	9. Chapter 9: Professional Help

___Okay, next chapter. I promise that this story will get better, I just needed this to lead up to the next one. Like I've done with all the other ones too. haha it sees like all of my chapters actually come in pairs... anyway, hope you all enjoy and thanks for the reviews and story alerts! I really enjoy reading them!_

_I don't own Doctor who, but would be in heaven in somehow, someday I did. =P_

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><p>I stomped up the stairs with my fist clenched at my side after Amelia's parents had made their way down the hall, arguing with each other on whether their daughter needed a psychiatrist or not.<p>

The fact that they believed that any "professional" could help her made me furious. No one would believe her, therefore no one would really be able to help. A psychiatrist, for Amy, would be just like her own personal monster. They'd force her to forget everything and then would try molding her into a _normal_ little girl.

I hated the Doctor now more than ever for this. There were often times when we'd be playing "Doctor", Rory in his dad's work clothes, and Amelia would make these wonderful stories up about him. They were always so believable that I even found myself wondering once or twice if Madame Kovarian had gotten everything wrong, that maybe the Doctor really was a good guy. Then things like this would happen, and I'd realize that it all really was the Doctor's fault. He was the reason Amelia always felt so lonely, why she always looked so sad when she thought no one was looking. He had never come back and now she'd have to see psychiatrist for it.

"What do you want?" I growled as I walked into my room. Madame Kovarian was leaning against my bed so I climbed up on the wardrobe and sat.

She glanced at my nighties first and then her gaze met mine. "Having fun with your parents, I presume?" Her voice had as much acid in it as mine had had earlier. The only difference was her voice made me feel a slight bit of fear, and mine hadn't done anything to her.

I crossed my arms, not letting it show. _I'm Melody Pond! I'm not scared of anything!_ "How am I supposed to know what day you're coming if you don't tell me?" I wouldn't mention to her the previous incident that had happened with Amelia and the crack. Kovarian would only smugly smile as if to say "See, I told you so,".

She grinned and then held up the fob watch she'd taken from me all those months ago. "Nevermind your irresponsibilities for now," She said. "It's finally time for you to see a part of the Time Lord you've never known before. Something more terrible than leaving a lonely little girl behind or blowing up an asteroid."

I sighed and jumped up off of the wardrobe. I never wanted to hear another thing about the Doctor again. I would even go through more of Kovarian's "fighting combat" classes than listen to anything else about him, good or bad. But I knew that arguing with her would be pointless, she didn't really care about what I wanted unless it would better her cause. Over the past few months I'd realized that that's why she brought me here in the first place, not to make my parents love me , but so I could see how the Doctor had ruined their lives. Telling Kovarian that I didn't want to do something wouldn't matter though, it would only make her say that I needed an attitude adjustment and then she'd give me some kind of punishment I'd rather not face.

"Okay," I came up to the bed and held out my hand. "Fine, but can I have the watch back?" even if it had been a few months since I'd seen it last, the watch still seemed to be the coolest thing I'd stolen so far. Perhaps it had sentimental values in it for me, or something, maybe because it was the first item I'd successfully taken. Rory tells me all the time that it's wrong to take things without asking, but I never really get in trouble, so I don't see much of a problem in it.

Kovarian clasped the watch into the palm of her hand. "Perhaps after today's lesson." she then held out her wrist with the vortex manipulator on it and motioned for me to place my hand over it. I made a face, time travel by manipulator always made my hair a mess and it had seemed to take me ages to get my hair just right this morning. The Vortex Manipulator would make it look bad again!

Kovarian didn't even notice my hesitation and the second my fingers touched her wrist she pushed the button and we were gone in a loud _zap!_


	10. Chapter 10: The Church

_This chapter has very much shortness in it. I've been going through some major writers block where I've known what all is going to happen, I just wasn't satisfied with anything that came out. Anyway, not sure I did this chapter justice, but it didn't make me wanna bash my head in. haha  
>And I am not from anywhere within the UK. Sadly, I am just American, so if I mess up any terms or slang, I'm sorry. I wish I was a cool European person, but I merely am not. Still, I love Doctor who and hope you all enjoy!<em>  
><em> btw, still don't own Doctor Who. I continue to say that because I guess it's mandatory. :P<em>

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><p>I wanted to go back to Amy's right away when we arrived at the "Church".<p>

The church wasn't really a church, but just an old abandoned office building. It was called the church because the "Silence" worked there, and I guess the silence is a religion or something. Madame Kovarian loved the silence. She told me that everything I did, I did for the Silence. I'd never seen more than a few people there at a time though, but I assumed that on days when Madame Kovarian didn't bring me, there were a lot . I couldn't be sure about what they did at the "Church" but it of course had something to do with the Doctor. I knew that someone monitored the Time Vortex, and someone else constantly looked at each event in history to find even the slightest changes that might have indicated that the Doctor had been there. Madame Kovarian had said that the eye patches helped them to notice the differences; without them, their memories of those events would change, along with the times the Doctor had tampered with.

I don't have a lot of fond memories of the Church. Whenever I came, my mind would feel real fuzzy and I'd end up with aches and pains all over. The pains were from training, although the exact details always slipped away. But this time when we arrived, I realized why everything was always like that, since the culprit was only a few inches in front of me. If I didn't know any better I would have said it was an ugly alien. But they'd been around for as long as the human race, at least, that's what the Doctor said when I was still in Florida and he'd taken my mum from them. It was funny how I couldn't remember anything about them unless I saw them in front of me.

Madame Kovarian squeezed my shoulder to make me keep walking forward. I warily continued to glance a them as she guided me to the exact room she wanted to take me to. "Won't I forget this lesson?" _Along with all the other lessons I've had? _I thought bitterly. It made no sense to me why she was "preparing" me for my future, but I couldn't remember it at all.

Kovarian made a _tsk-tsk_ sound as we turned down another hall. "You'll remember this when it's most needed. Until then, we don't need you accidentally telling your _friends_ about your future. Just think of how upset Amelia would be if she found out _you_ are the one to one day kill the Doctor, her imaginary friend."

I pursed my lips but kept quiet. It annoyed me that she thought I'd just blab something like that to someone! Just because I stole things sometimes and got a bit into trouble didn't mean I would ruin my mum's life like that. "Why do I have to kill him?" I had tried not to ask it, but it had come out.

"You were created for one purpose only Melody, to kill the Doctor. If you refuse to do as such," she gave me a sharp look, more as a warning than anything else. "then you'll have to pay the consequences."

I never liked admitting when something scared me. But when Madame Kovarian talked about "consequences" it was never something that normal kid got, like washing the dishes or getting grounded from the tellie. I didn't like going against what she said, ever. There was always too much at stake.

"Step in this room and have a seat Melody." She said closing the door behind us. The room looked like a meeting type of room with a long table and chairs in a few spots. There was a mirror at the end of the room and nothing else. I glanced back at Kovarian, wondering if she was serious about this room, and what she might intend to do in here, but her face didn't exactly give me any clues. With a sigh I went over to sit at one of the chairs on the end, awaiting further instructions.


	11. Chapter 11: Names

_I hope I represented all the characters correctly in these next two chapters. This isn't the end by a long shot, but it took a lot of planning and re-watching at one point. So I really hope you guys enjoy! And thanks so much to those who are sticking with this. You guys are amazing. =D_

_Me no own Doctor Who. I just wanna._

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><p>Madame Kovarian went to fetch the mirror on the wall and set it up on the table in front of me. She put it on some stands and then glanced down at me expectantly. "Do you see anything?" she asked.<p>

I looked from the mirror to her confused. "Just my reflection." I said, but I instantly felt like I'd answered the question wrong.

Kovarian smirked at something off to the side. "Look closer child, sometimes you can see things in the mirror you don't normally see."

I was beginning to think that maybe Kovarian was going crazy. She'd always seemed a bit cracked in the attic, what with all the stuff about me killing someone, but this seemed different from what I'd normally consider coo-coo for her. She was telling me to see something in the mirror that wasn't there. Still, I looked harder into the mirror, and still only saw myself, still in my nighties from the sleepover with Amy and still tired. "I can't see anything else Madame." I said, growing irritated.

"Perhaps this will help." she handed me the watch with a look on her face that made me think that she'd known all along that the watch would make it work somehow. How? I didn't know. But it was worth trying. "Show the watch to the mirror, dear." She instructed.

With a yawn I did as Madame Kovarian said. I held the old fob watch up to the mirror and waited patiently for nothing to happen. Kovarian started to say something else, but I became distracted by the words on the watch. The night when I had first taken the watch into Amelia's room, I had had a hunch that they were some kind of language, something written and not just an intricate design to make it look cool. Looking at it in front of the mirror, it was like the symbols were swirling around, trying to make words that would make sense. I was mesmerized, it seemed impossible to stop watching...until something hissed in my right ear.

With a startled jump that was downright embarrassing I turned to the side to see who had done that. Of course it was one of the monsters again. I had almost forgotten they were even at the church until I'd seen one again. "Ahem..." Madame Kovarian cleared her throat.

"Yeah?" I asked, reluctantly turning away from my right. "Madame, the watch doesn't work either."

She raised an eyebrow, like she knew I had been looking at the words rather than listening to her. I sighed as she started to repeat herself. "It isn't working because you have to invite her Melody."

"Her? Invite who?" I asked.

"You must pay more attention during these lessons." She warned.

"Okay, okay. What am I to do then?" I asked.

Kovarian sat down in the chair beside me and leaned in to whisper in my ear. "You must say 'sister of mine, I have what you want, but for a price..."

My eyebrows knitted together, I was confused. "Why can't you just say it? You know what to do." although I really wanted to keep the watch, I started to hand it back to Kovarian.

"No," she pushed my hand away. "This is your lesson Melody. _You_ are the one preparing for your future. You must do it."

I sighed again and turned back to the mirror. "Okay, here goes nothing. Um, Sister of mine, I have what you nee-want, but for a price..." I watched the mirror expectantly. I didn't really think that anything would come from it, but who knew? Perhaps I had a secret sister that the church just had never told me about until now. That would be a bit weird, but what about my life wasn't? "Penny in the air," I said as again we waited for a few seconds and nothing happened. Madame Kovarian stayed seated beside me with that same old smirk across her face, and I fought the urge to lay my head down and sleep. Being part Time Lord, I guess I didn't need as much sleep as say Amy or Rory, but I had been up for at least three days before, and I'd managed to break into the schools P.A system to make the speakers say chicken sounds whenever they were turned on, I was exhausted.

I nearly lost a heartbeat when something finally did appear inside the mirror. I couldn't even finish my saying because I was rendered speechless. A little girl about my age was inside the mirror staring back at both me and Madame Kovarian. She didn't try to get out and didn't look happy about being in there at all. "And the penny drops." Kovarian said in mock of my silence. I continued to stare at the girl looking back at me through the mirror. "Who...who is she?" I looked up in confusion.

"This is the daughter in the Family of Blood. She's been trapped inside every mirror for all of eternity, because of the Doctor. But her story is far worse." Madame Kovarian looked at the girl "There is what you want, are you willing to pay the price."

The girl looked at the watch still in my hand for what seemed like a very long time. Finally she glanced back at Madame Kovarian with a shake of her head. "I don't want that rubbish old watch. It's of no value to me."

"Oh, but you do want it." she replied in a voice that almost seemed cynical. "Melody is part Time Lord, she can read Gallifreyan."

The girl looked at me skeptically before announcing that "There is no such thing! You are telling lies!"

"We've made her this way." Kovarian explained. "Two hearts helps the regeneration process and her intelligence is more advanced than those nearly twenty years older than her. Now will you pay the price or not?"

The girl loudly sniffed the air and wrinkled her forehead. "She does smell faintly of the Vortex..." she mused. I brought my hand up to my nose and sniffed, but I wasn't really sure what the Time Vortex was supposed to smell like. "Tell me what the watch says, and I'll give you the reward." She looked at me, almost hungrily. Then I realized it was the watch, not me, that her eyes were focused on. "um," I looked down at the watch as the designs continued to rearrange themselves. If I stared at it long enough, I was sure that they'd form into something coherent within seconds.

"You won't hear what it says until you tell the child the story." Madame Kovarian was smirking again. Never a very good sign.

She sighed and took her gaze away from my hand. "All right. but which story? You must know that since I live in every mirror for all of eternity I have many stories I could tell." She innocently watched as annoyance crossed Kovarians face.

"The one of your family's demise." Madame Kovarian said curtly. The girls sweet smile changed instantly into a scowl. She glared at Kovarian as she agreed to tell us. "Demise implies that we are dead. We are not." She turned to address me, "but very well. I shall tell you if you promise to give me the name on the watch."

_Promissse her Melody,_ something said in the back of my mind. _It's only a name. What harm could that do? Givvve her the name. _"Right!" I agreed, sitting up a bit. "I'll do it. Let's just get on with the story...Cut to the song, it's getting boring." I stopped for a second, quite liking the new phrase I'd just made up, and the best part was that Madame Kovarian couldn't finish it for me just yet, since she'd never heard it before.

Kovarian rolled her eyes at me as the girl began to tell her tale.


	12. Chapter 12: 50 percent

_Second update in one night! Wowza!  
>Okay, so this is the chapter that the others have been leading up to for some time. And it's loooong. Some Ten references in this chapter! Whoo! Who doesn't love Ten? Although I'm sad to say that because of the characters, he isn't exactly shown as the Doctor that we all know and love...anyways enjoy this part too please! =]<em>

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><p>The little girl told me her story then. She explained that during the time when the Doctor was in his tenth regeneration, she and her family had been traveling across the stars on a "vacation of sorts" when they had caught the scent of a Time Lord. They became very curious at the smell, because they knew that Time Lords were extinct along with the planet, Gallifrey, which the species came from. So to quench their curiosity, they set their ship after the TARDIS into the time vortex and followed him for what seemed like ages. They only wanted to meet him and see if he was real, but the Doctor never stopped until they came to earth in 1913.<p>

He hid from them on earth as her family began to die. She said that if they didn't find someone to help them, they would only have had three months to live. I figured that she must have found some kind of help, since she seemed pretty all right and talking to me. She only glared back though. "I'm alive, yes. But not really. I'm alive through every mirror but not in any way that's important. _He_ made sure of that." After saying that, Madame Kovarian had told me not to interrupt again and had given me a threatening look that made sure I'd not interrupt again.

The girl went on to explain that it wasn't long before they realized that the Doctor could help them to live longer. It was rumored that he had all kinds of different medicines abroard his space ship, he had to have something for life expansion. So they started searching even harder for the Time Lord. She said that they had to take a physical form to find him and that they all regretted taking the human lives but they needed to find help. It didn't sound too unreasonable to me.

Her brother took the form of a teenager going to the local boys school. He, was sort of the leader of the family and often caught random whiffs of the Doctor's scent, so he knew the man was close. Her father took the body of a farmer, Her mother took the form of a Maid who worked at the school and had memories that helped lead to the Doctor through his companion Martha something, and she became the little girl.

A few days passed and still the Doctor hid from them. They couldn't understand why, since they'd heard so famously that he always wanted to help it didn't make sense why he didn't want to help them. The little girl explained that they went to a dance where she finally overheard the Martha lady talking to the school teacher about how he was the Time Lord. She then told her family who came to the dance right away.

They soon found out that the Doctor had put his 'essence' inside a fob watch. Evidently it was the fob watch I had found...well stolen, and that was why he had been so hard to detect. When they found him he refused to talk to them and sent the students of the school out to get them. The children of the school had guns and other weapons they used against the family and the family only had a tiny scare crow army. "We were outnumbered and outmatched," the little girl said. I could already tell that she hated the Doctor as much as I was supposed to. Her story seemed to be refreshing that hatred that had been on and off for the past few months inside of me though.

The girl's mother and father found the Doctor's TARDIS and then waited their in hopes that he'd come back and help them. He didn't though, so they went back to their ship. Finally after all that time pursuing him, the Doctor finally came back to their ship to talk to them. He pretended to be stupid, like a human, which they all knew was a ruse from the beginning. He gave them the watch, but never told them what they needed and then pressed as many buttons on the console as possible. The girl said that if they wouldn't have gotten out of the ship in time, it would have blown up with all of them still in it.

The Doctor's fun didn't end there though. He had known that they wanted to live longer, so had decided to grant them this wish. "Well, that's not so bad is it?" I asked before guiltily glancing at Madame Kovarian. She look irritated but didn't do anything that might indicate I'd have to pay consequences.

Once again the little girl only glared at me and continued. "It wasn't anything good." She growled. The Doctor had wrapped her father in unbreakable dwarf star alloy chains and then imprisoned him in an underground chamber to live forever alone and in the dark. Her mother was thrown into an event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, which is apparently bad, and trapped her there for all of eternity. Her brother was time locked as a scare crow to watch over the fields for the rest of time as a "protector. The girl's punishment was to be trapped in ever mirror. She said that she got the worst of the sentences because every once and a while he would return with his ugly hair and stupid clothes and would just stare at her with no expression but anger in his eyes. Her brother hopes that he'll forgive her one day, but she believes he never will. "The Doctor doesn't forgive." she scoffed. "It's not his nature. Of the Time Lords, he is the worst. and it's almost a shame that he's the last."

"No he isn't." I said. John was a Time Lord. and a nice one at that. He would never do anything like the Doctor had done to the family. After hearing the girls story, I couldn't believe I ever even doubted what the Church had said.

"You aren't full Time Lord, Melody." Madame Kovarian said. "You're merely a human/Time Lord hybrid." I didn't think it was a good idea to explain to her that I had been talking about John, so I just nodded and looked down at the watch.

"I told my story, now give me what I want." The girl said.

I looked up at her confused. "What?"

"You can read Gallifreyan. Tell me what name is on the watch." she demanded.

I looked from her to Madame Kovarian and back. "Why do you need a name?"

The girl sighed, and glanced at me as if she were talking to a very dumb baby. I grit my teeth. "The name of a Time Lord is very valuable. With that kind of information, someone could have infinite power. I could release my family from their bondage, I could be _free._" She turned to Kovarian "it was apart of our deal that she gives me the name."

Madame Kovarian nodded. "She will. Go on Melody." She stared at me, hard.

I looked down at the watch again. I could definitely pick out letters that might make up a name, but did I really want to tell them what it said? If what she was saying was true, and what I could read on the fob watch really did hold that much power, then why would I let the girl have it? Her story was convincing sure, but there was something about her that made me think that she was up to something that could end terribly. Plus, if the Doctor's name was so great, then I wanted it all to myself for a day when I might need it. With that I made my final decision. "I...I can't." I said, looking up at her as uncertain as I could manage.

"What?" she and Madame Kovarian asked in unison.

"I don't know what the watch says." I let my voice crack a bit, like I was about to cry. "It's just a pretty design to me. Is it supposed to be Gallifreyan?"

The little girl glared at us before addressing Madame Kovarian. "You owe me now Kovarian. Remember that. One day I will collect my debt and if you do not have it..." she grinned cynically. "We can play games all day long."

"I always pay debts back." Kovarian replied without showing an ounce of fear. The girl then faded away, out of sight inside the mirror and left us staring blankly.

Madame Kovarian stood up then and turned to someone behind me. I turned to see who it was and recognized the monsters who, of course, must have been there the whole time. "Take her." she ordered. "Run more test on the child. She won't be leaving until she is at least 50 percent Time Lord."

"I'm sorry," I muttered to her as she walked out of the office room. I doubted that she'd heard me as she slammed the door behind her. The White monsters in suites that needed a good cleaning grabbed my arms and then led me away to the "Improvement" room.


	13. Chapter 13: Covering up

_Sorry it's been so long! I've been trying to juggle school and other stressful things in my life, but really it's just been a bunch of procrastination. Of course writers block was a part of that, but then this finally came out right! Anyways, please enjoy! And thanks to everyone who reviews and story alerts/anything else. You guys really are awesome. =]_

_P.S. here's an obligatory claim that I don't own Doctor Who!_

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><p>About two weeks later, Rory was sitting outside of <em>Amy's<em> house at the front door. He had been banned from coming inside, not by Mr. or Mrs. Pond, but by their daughter who refused to talk to him ever again. Of course, instead of listening to her, Rory waited outside in case she decided at the last minute that maybe she did need to talk.

He didn't know why he was doing it. He did a lot of things for her without really knowing why. Since she'd first come to Leadworth she had been known as one of those girls who were weird and talked about space aliens like they really exists. Even he had to admit sometimes that he thought her obsession with a time traveling goofball seemed a bit odd. He never went so far as Mels had and told her so, but he had thought it once or twice. His mom, and even her parents, were convinced that it was just a phase. Amelia would grow out of it in no time. Rory didn't really care if it was a phase though, as long as they were still friends he felt he'd be fine. He figured they would always be close, it would always be him and her, best mates for life, even if she didn't want to speak to him. He had a feeling, though, that she would.

He had been so caught up in his own thoughts that it took him a moment to realize his other friend standing in front of him. He looked up to see Mels standing with the sun shining at her back. Her arms were crossed and she grinned, but she looked very tired. "Hey Rory," she stepped next to him and plopped down beside where he sat. There was no doubt she was very curious as to why he wasn't inside the house like he normally would be, but Rory suddenly became more curious with what was wrong with Mels.

When she had stepped out of the sun he had been momentarily blinded by how unexpectedly bright it had been. Mels had always liked being dramatic, but he hadn't thought to look away from the light when she'd moved. When she sat next to him, he caught a glimpse of her face full on for the first time.

"What happened?" he asked. He would still have to figure out how to comfort Amy, but Mels was his friend too. Perhaps not as close, and certainly not as nice, but he could definitely feel a connection between them that could only register as friendship. And Mels had her moments when she wasn't too bad.

"Huh? Nothing. Just been gone a bit." Was all she said as a reply. Rory could tell she was lying. Mels had bruises covering her face, hard to see, but still noticeable if you looked. She looked exhausted and was acting more cheerful than she actually was, he could see it in her eyes. Also, it almost looked like she'd lost some weight, her clothes were loose at her sides.

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><p>"What were you doing?" Rory asked me skeptically.<p>

"Hmm, I don't know." I bit my lip and thought hard. I couldn't remember much. Just woke up a few minutes ago down the street in Miss. Conway's house. She'd told me that a nice man had dropped me off and had given her a message to tell me he'd talk to me soon. The man was obviously John, since no one else could be described as "Couldn't keep his mouth shut long enough to take a breath, and had this awful hat on his head!". When I had realized this, I grew very irritated. I'd been gone for months (and I knew it was months, my memory hadn't failed me that badly) and then the time that John decides to visit, I'm either knocked out or really just can't remember. "Just a bit of a holiday." I said. Explaining what really happened to Rory would be pointless.

"Just a holiday? Did you get into a fight with bears and win?"

I laughed, although he did seem kind of serious. Like he thought I'd waste my time fighting a bear? I changed the subject. "What are you doing out here? Is Amelia not home?"

He stared at me longer, still trying to pry at where I'd been and why I was so bruised up. Believe me, I wanted to know too. Here I was, Melody Pond, part Time Lord extraordinaire experiencing the uncomfortable sensation of sore muscles and really just wanting to take a good nap. It was so annoying. Especially since, like all the other times I'd been around Kovarian and the church, I couldn't remember how I'd gotten this way.

Rory gave up on getting an answer from me and sighed. "_Amy._ She goes by Amy now. She won't let me in. Doesn't want to talk to anyone because we're all 'stupid'."

"Well, I'm not stupid." I stood up and turned towards the door, pulling his shirt to make him stand too. "And why would you ever listen to her tell you something like that? Tell you what. I bet she just needs a good hug."

"You don't know what happened." Rory said quietly. "Her parents took her to a psychologist and she poured the tea onto the therapist lap. I think they're all angry at each other now."

I had to admit that it was hard imagining Agustus Pond really being mad. It must have just been Tabetha who was upset. She never supported her daughters idea of the Doctor anyway.

"Well, come on!" I encouraged. "Angry or not, we've got to help her. Our future depends on it!" _My_ future depends on it.

"What does that mean?" Rory asked as I opened the door, surprisingly not locked, and pulled him inside.

"It means, get your dad's old bow tie, we're gonna play Doctor!"

Although I had never been too fond of Amelia's idol, I had no objections this time to playing the silly game. In fact, after all that I'd been through within the past few weeks, playing a character in some imaginary game, even if the hero in real life was really an evil villain who destroyed his entire race, would be a welcome change from everything else. And I cold get Amy to do it, I was her best mate. She'd always listen to me.


	14. Chapter 14: Hot Tea

_This Chapter to me seems a little bit out of character but I kind of like it. Mostly it's just a continuation of the last chapter but still... I hope you guys enjoy it! =]  
>Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, story alerted, or favorited this. You rock!<em>

_and I still don't own Doctor Who. haha_

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><p>We walked through the front door and passed her parents along the way. "Hi Mr. and Mrs. Pond!" I said cheerfully. "Just gonna go cheer up Amelia. I heard she dumped tea on her therapist!"<p>

Tabetha looked very unamused by my statement while Agustus tried to hide a smirk. Rory stood awkwardly in front of them, and waved a quick hello before I grabbed his wrist and guided-well actually pulled-him up the stairs.

The staircase up to my room was still there, and still barely noticeable thanks to the perception filter. I wondered for the briefest second if everything was still the same up there, had anyone been in it while I was gone? I didn't like that idea. I didn't even like it when Madame Kovarian was in my room.

I let go of Rory's wrist as soon as we reached my mum's door. I twisted the knob but it was locked. That wasn't much of a problem. I could break into any kind of lock, especially spaceship locks.

I got the door unlocked and made my grand entrance by pretending to kick the door open and then walking over to the bed where Amy was lying on her stomach. I jumped up onto it and then sat down cross legged. "Was the tea hot?" I reached for the Doctor's TARDIS, which honestly didn't seem far too different from Johns. I'd have to ask him sometime if all TARDIS'S looked like that.

Rory still stood at the door looking scared. Sometimes it seemed almost funny how nervous he could be around her.

"What are you doing here?" She asked harshly.

I pressed a hand to my chest, pretending to be hurt. "Geez Amelia, ain't I allowed to come see my best mate?"

"No." she sat up and took the cardboard TARDIS out of my hands. "Go away! I don't want to talk to anyone!"

I acted like I didn't even hear her. "Good thing I don't wanna talk." I said springing towards her wardrobe. I opened a drawer and started digging through it. "Say Amelia, where do you keep all those old work shirts for Rory?"

"I'm Amy now." She corrected.

"Don't like Amelia anymore?"

"Too fairytale." she admitted.

I nodded and pulled out the one shirt that always reminded her of the Doctor the most. "Yeah. Melody is like that too. It's like a story, yeah?"

"Is that your name? Your real name?" Rory asked.

I brought the shirt over and handed it to him. "Yeah," I said. "Don't tell anyone or I'll get you stuck up a tree Rory Williams!"

Amy laughed at that before asking "So, where did you go? You were gone for ...a while."I shrugged and gave her the same answer as I'd given Rory. "Just a sort of holiday with my..family." she looked at me skeptical. "Well don't do it again okay?" she asked. I smiled and went to dig through the toy chest. "So, you didn't tell me." I grabbed the pirate hat and placed it on top of my head. "Was the tea hot?"

She finally got off of the bed and came over to the chest to join in on the game. "Very." she said "It wasn't good at all and it burnt my tongue!"

"Why did you dump it on her?" Rory's voice had been muffled under the shirt which he was attempting to put on. He was standing behind us now, having walked deeper into the room. He hadn't unbuttoned any of the buttons though and was finding his head stuck in one of the sleeves.

Amy placed her home made sword back and went to help Rory while I added an eye patch and a squirtgun to my ensemble. "She told me the Doctor wasn't real." she said truthfully.

"But she's never seen the Doctor so how could she know?" his head was now out of the shirt sleeve, thanks to his future wife.

I adjusted the eyepatch so I could see better and then turned around and pointed the squirtgun at Rory. "Freeze Doctor! I'm the Misses Evil!" I said.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Bad guys don't just announce that they're evil Mels. That would ruin the surprise."

"But wouldn't it be rude to lie?" I kept the pretend gun pointed at Rory.

"I'm tired of being the Doctor!" Rory whined. "Let me be the bad guy this time and Mels can be the Doctor."

Amy glared at Rory like she was still angry at him for trying to talk to her. "Mels can't be the Doctor, Rory, she's a _girl!_"

"Doctor's can be girls." he protested.

she sighed. "Not _The Doctor_."

"That's right!" I said pulling the pretend trigger on the fake gun. "And you're dead now Doctor!"

I ran over to Amy's bed which was my very own "time machine". Rory sighed before realizing he'd always be stuck playing the Doctor and fell to the floor dramatically. "I can't die!" he said. "Just...just some technical difficulties. Amy!"

"Yes Doctor?" she knelt down beside him, pretending to be worried about his health.

"I need medicine! Fly the TARDIS to the hospital and get me medicine!"

I laughed. "You can't get to the medicine if I blow the hospital up first!"

"Hurry Amy, hurry!" Rory said.

Amy nodded and then took the cardboard TARDIS zooming around the room. Of course, since I was the bad guy, I was defeated in the end and she got medicine to the undeserving Time Lord just in time. I was sent to prison, but not before they made me confess all the wrong that I'd done, and that if I promised to never be evil again, I could travel with them both on the TARDIS where the Doctor would never leave any of us, especially not Amy. I wouldn't promise anything.

Sometimes, I thought that mabye Madame Kovarian was right, though. The Doctor leaving Amy like that really had caused her to have abandonment issues. In almost every game we ever played of the Doctor, it always ended in Rory (as the Doctor) somehow admitting that he'd never ever leave her...ever. And that was all the Doctor's fault for leaving her in the first place. And one day he'd pay for hurting my mum like that, and I'd be the one ensuring that it happened.


	15. Chapter 15: You're Late

_Here you guys go! Another chapter just for you! This story has gotten so long (to me anyway)! I have a ending planned out but all of the middle just keeps filling up! Anyways...please enjoy! _

_I do not own Doctor who. =D_

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><p>He hadn't completely lied to the Ponds when he'd said he knew where to find their daughter. The truth was that he did have at least an inkling of an idea where the little girl would be. Or, at least the TARDIS did. He also did intend on finding little Melody Pond and keeping her safe. He'd told Amy all that. And so far he felt he'd lived up to his word. Plus, he'd never said that he would bring their baby back, no promises had been made there, although it did cause him to feel quite guilty.<p>

The Doctor couldn't take Melody back though. The child grew up to be River Song. If he were to do the right thing, find the baby, give her back to her parents, then he feared that the timelines may change. River had been too intertwined in all of their timestreams recently for the Doctor to just carelessly go about changing her entire backstory. He'd promised her anyway, a long time ago, that he'd never rewrite time for her sake. He didn't think that finding her and giving her a happy life with her parents, although nice-sounding that it was, could be an exception.

The TARDIS landed, pulling the Doctor out of his thoughts. He patted her console before reaching for his tweed and then heading over to take a peek through the doors. Before he could lay a hand on the exit, the door was pulled open and River Song entered looking very cross. "You're late." she accused.

"Late?" he asked. "Late for what?"

She eyed him angrily before waltzing over to sit on his side of the seat. "Spoilers." she growled.

The Doctor shut the TARDIS doors with a deep sigh. He'd been planning on seeing Melody. He was going to see how she'd been since the last time when he'd left her with that nice cat lady. Instead he recieved a cross River Song, angry at him for something he hadn't even done yet!

Although seeing both Melody Pond, and River Song in the same general area of space would be quite amusing, the Doctor knew that it wasn't actually a good idea, and River needed cheering up. Dinner at one of the frozen planets orbiting a black hole seemed like just the thing she needed. They even gave every guest a free pair of gloves! He put the coordinates into the TARDIS and began pulling the levers and twisting the thingamajigs.

River stood up then to fix his mistakes that weren't really mistakes, more or less they were _purposeful_ mistakes to make her get up and become less grumpy. "Where are we going, Sweetie?" she asked, covering the button for the parking break so the TARDIS wouldn't make that "awful" noise.

"Dinner." he beamed at her. She finally smiled back and with a shake, the time machine was zooming off into the Time Vortex.


	16. Chapter 16: The Doctor's Girlfriend

_Aaaaand hello everyone! Just wanted to say that I LOVE YOU ALL! I don't even know any of you, but yeah, I love you! Thanks for reviewing and story alerting and favoriting and sticking around to read my story and stuff. ^.^ The next chapter or so has even more River/Mels in it. So yeah... please enjoy!_

-_I don't own any of the amazingness of Doctor Who. Yup!_

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><p>Walking home alone from detention was no fun. Normally Amy would wait after for me, and we'd walk home together, sometimes she was even serving detention too, but tonight she had therapy to go to, and she wasn't allowed to skip. She'd even bit the lady twice, and still her therapist insisted on staying.<p>

So I was all alone, left to 'think about' how bad I'd been. I was midway through town when I heard two adults arguing. One had a voice that I would know from anywhere, he only got all pitchy when he was upset: John Smith.

I turned the corner, and followed my ears until I came across the two. I had been right, and it was John, standing in front of his spaceship with his arms flailing around as he tried explaining things. He was talking to the woman standing in front of him, who's arms were crossed, and eyes were glaring. She had very curly hair, unlike mine in the fact that hers spiraled around her face in a very pretty way. She pursed her lips as she tried not to interrupt John.

"All I'm saying is that if she brought us here, we might as well take advantage of it! Come on! We could finally find out what this town is since neither _you_, nor the old girl will tell me."

"The TARDIS did not take us here dear, you did." She accused.

"No I didn't! You know she takes us where we need to go. Like I said earlier, I don't even know where here is! How can I be expected to..."

She growled "We aren't supposed to cross our own time lines. Get back inside, we can go to any other planet you'd like!" She started to push her way back to the ship, but John placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

"Bloody likely, Song. The TARDIS takes us where we need to go. If you know her so well, which you claim you do, then you," He tapped her nose, like he always did to me, "of all people would know that."

"But sweetie, what about paradoxes?" She tried. _What was a paradox?_

"Oh pish posh paradoxes! You've created enough to tear the universe apart, and the TARDIS still likes you." He paused, thinking. "Actually, she ignores everything wrong that you do and always blames me..." The sides of the lady's lips turned up slightly as she almost smiled. "Now come on, let's go exploring!" He held out his hand to her, which she grabbed without hesitation. Instead of following him like he wanted though, she still tried pulling him back to the ship.

Whoever this lady was, I was starting to not like her. Even though they were fighting, it seemed obvious that John liked her. In fact, it almost looked like he was arguing with her only because he thought it was funny to get her mad. Only people who really liked someone in the like-like way did that! Amy did it to Rory all the time!

To keep my future with John safe, I decided that that moment was when I needed to step out and introduce myself. I turned the corner just as the 'Song' lady started to lean closer to John to whisper something in his ear.

"Hey!" I pretended like I'd just seen them. John looked to his friend, then to me and grinned. His friend looked like she had been caught somewhere she didn't want to be, and couldn't leave anymore.

"Melody! How longs it been since I last saw you?"

"Not long." _only about a year._ He let go of the lady's hand and held out his arms for a hug. I gladly wrapped mine around him and hugged him back.

"Who's she?" I nodded towards the curly haired blond. His grin grew wider at the look of her discomfort.

"Melody Pond, this is River Song, you'll get to know a lot of her some day."

I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Is this one of those things that I'm not supposed to know about yet?"

John laughed. "Yes! Isn't it brilliant? Oh I love having something over you, or will have, but anyways, I think I've figured out why we were taken here!" John reached for Rivers arm, and pulled her beside him. "Melody, you talk to River about things that Pond's talk about, while I go and find a decent place that has fish fingers and custard. I'm starved!"

"The Doctor likes fish fingers and custard..." I looked suspiciously at Johns shrinking form.

"It's a Time Lord thing." River announced. "They all seem to like it. Funny huh?"

I crossed my arms and glared at her. That wasn't true. Never had anyone told me that, and _I_ certainly didn't like fish fingers and custard. "Actually, it's just a Doctor thing. Eleventh regeneration to be exact. In his ninth and tenth regeneration he had this nutter obsession with bananas. His fifth incarnation wore celery and the fourth wore a bloody long scarf."

"You seem to know a lot about him." For a second, I caught a glimpse of sadness in her eye as she said it.

I decided to ignore what I'd seen, and lifted my chin proudly. "I have to remember what every weird trait of his was. Past and future." Madame Kovarian had explained that he could turn up anytime, in any form. I had to be ready.

"What's he look like?" she asked.

I faltered. No one had a very clear picture of him. He was always moving too much or somehow the evidence had been erased. I had descriptions to go by, and that was it. Often I became suspicious of John, because he matched a lot of the description for the eleventh incarnation, but he never seemed angry enough to be the Doctor. The Doctor was always angry. "I...we don't know." for a slight second, I wondered who "we" were.

She smiled, and headed for the doors."Come into the TARDIS, and we'll talk."

I shook my head. "I don't go anywhere with strangers. It's a rule."

"Funny rule for a girl like you." She winked at me and pulled the doors open

I started to follow her in as the TARDIS hummed softly in my head. No one besides me ever pulled the doors open. She liked River just as much as me. "Are you his girlfriend?" The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. If the TARDIS liked River Song then there was no reason I couldn't, the only thing that could change that was if she was dating John.

She raised an eyebrow. "Who? The Doctor?" She smiled. "Can't really stay away. I do like me a bad boy."

It should have bothered me that this lady knew the Doctor, or that she liked him, but all I felt after she said that was relief. No one would get in the way of John and me because _she _was no longer a threat.


	17. Chapter 17:River Song

_I was going to update this later today, but forgot that I'm going to a concert and won't be able to, so here it is! I had some fun with this chapter and the conversations that Mels and River have. Also, I can completely understand why Mels has a crush on "John". :P _

_Well anyways, hope you guys enjoy this one as well. Everytime I see a new review or story alert/favorite, I squee like a weirdo, but it's worth it. _

_I don't own Doctor who, or the characters._

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><p>River headed straight for the TARDIS kitchen, Mels following closely behind.<p>

She knew that Mels was hoping for some kind of adventure. That was something that hadn't changed through regeneration. Doing normal human things seemed boring when you had heightened senses and could think your way out of anything.

She'd expected to go on an amazing adventure that day too. The Doctor was supposed to pick her up for a date and they were going to go to this planet that he'd "just discovered". She had been hoping that while visiting, they would have come across trouble, _like they always did_, and they'd get to run.

Instead she'd gotten the younger Doctor. This Doctor who had picked her up, still blushed when their hands brushed against each other, and could barely meet her eye. He had to know who she was, because he knew Melody was River, but he barely knew anything else. She doubted they were even married yet.

At that point, River wasn't sure which Doctor she hated most. _Her Doctor_ had been late for their anniversary, as usual, but the younger Doctor was taking pleasure in River's lack of control around Mels, convinced that finally he had something over her. He was so wrong.

She decided that her Doctor was more at fault. He was the one who had promised her dinner and then hadn't come for her. That's why she had decided that they would go to the kitchen instead of "borrowing" the TARDIS to go on some well deserved adventure of their own. Mels was probably hungry too. River looked back at her, just to be sure and nodded to herself. At the age Mels was, she would be spending enough time in detention that it almost became a second home, she'd be hungry too.

"Where are we going?" Mels asked her "John hasn't shown me very much of the TARDIS at all."

River grinned mischievously back at her former self. "I imagine you're hungry." she said. She turned her head forward and tried to hide her confusion. She didn't remember the Doctor ever being in Leadworth. She remembered the times she'd missed him, when Amy and Rory would come back a few weeks later exhausted and giddy at the same time, explaining in great detail the adventures they had had, but she didn't remember the Doctor or "John" ever being apart of her life.

"There's a kitchen in the ship?" Mels stepped out in front River to grab her attention. She looked suspicious. "But it can't be that big!"

River laughed. "You know it is, dear." They came to the kitchen doors and River reached out to open them but Mels pushed the door open faster, and ran inside.

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><p>"You <em>can't<em> make liquid biscuits!" Mels said defiantly. "It sounds gross!"

River shook her head and continued to stir the bowl of mix in her hands. "You can." she promised. "It's more common in the Sertex Galaxy, but I got the recipe from a friend."

Mels sat on top of the counter amazed. "You've been to other galaxies? What was it like?"

"Amazing." she started to explain what it was like, traveling with the Doctor. Of course, Mels seemed closed off to listening to her at first when she'd mentioned him, but the stories were too good to ignore. "How do you do it?" she asked, "I mean, you don't travel with John all the time. There are no records of you traveling with the Doctor, how do you get around?"

She leaned over and showed her the vortex manipulator. "Took this from a Time Agent in the 51st century."

"Madame Kovarian has one..." River grimaced at that horrible woman's name. "Is she a Time Agent?"

"Far from it Mels." River poured the batter into a pan and set the stencils over top. "You're going to learn soon that Madame Kovarian isn't all she seems to be."

"You hate her." Mels observed, she crossed her arms. "What did she ever do to you?"

River wasn't surprised by what Mels had said, she remembered how easy it was to pick up on things when she was in Leadworth, it was apart of her training. She still, to this day, could connect things together faster than a normal woman should. It wasn't like River had hid her dislike of the woman either. She continued to stare at her younger self and sighed. "She wants to use a little girl to do something that she should be brave enough to do herself."

"You don't care that she want's your mate dead?" Mels seemed conflicted.

"Of course not. There are plenty of people who want the Doctor dead. I just feel that it's unfair to use you, only because you're part Time Lord." she took a deep breath "Madame Kovarian should fight her own battles instead of manipulating others to do it for her."

The two stayed quiet as the biscuits set. River knew she shouldn't have said too much about Madame Kovarian, she was the only mother figure that Melody Pond ever really had, but she had to understand the truth. Even if she'd somehow forget it one day. "You're right." Mels eventually said.

"What do you mean, love?" It felt weird talking to herself so much.

"Madame Kovarian does use me." she stood, her hair sticking up at different angles. "I've never really wanted to kill anyone. Amy says it's not good to kill people and...she's my mum. But, whenever Madame Kovarian talks about the Doctor, I _do_ want to kill him. It's like something switches in my brain, and that's all I want to do."

River knew exactly what she was talking about. This was still early for Melody. This was when she still independently wondered if the Doctor was as evil as the church said. It made her sad to realize that Mels was going to change so very soon. At that moment she decided that the Doctor was right, the TARDIS didn't mind when she created paradoxes, because they were always for a good purpose. She reached out and pushed a hair behind Melody's ear. "I know." she said. Then she fished the freshly made biscuits out of their stencils and started for the most fun room in the ship, biscuits in hand. She was going to give Melody Pond the best day she would have for a while, and the worst part was that she probably wouldn't remember it. River certainly didn't.

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><p>By the end of the day, I couldn't believe that I ever doubted that River was someone who couldn't be trusted. She was the most fun adult I'd ever met.<p>

First, she didn't follow rules. She thought that rules could be broken if you had a reasonable explanation for breaking them, or if you had a hair appointment that couldn't be missed and you had to steal a Time Agent's vortex manipulator. She'd had three manipulators so far. The Doctor evidently had thrown all of her previous ones away for being "cheap and nasty" time travel, so River continued to use them, just to annoy him. I thought that was funny.

She brought me to this room that had fun house mirrors everywhere and we played hide and seek in there. I'd never met an adult who would play hide and seek with a twelve year old. That made River even more cool. Then we went to John's room, where she told me to never tell him about it. John was very protective over his room. "He keeps a lot of toys in here." She explained as she pushed a button which released bubbles the size of a beach ball and bigger all throughout the room. We bounced from bubble to bubble, moving quickly before they popped underneath us until we heard a banging somewhere in the TARDIS.

"That'll be John." River announced. She let the bubble she was standing on pop and landed swiftly on the bed below, ruining the perfectly laid out sheets. I followed her lead and we went out of the bedroom, through the hall, and into the console room, side by side.

"Rivahhh!" John was beating on the doors, causing the TARDIS to be slightly annoyed. "Rivahhh!" the doors muffled his words to make it sound like his a was even more drawn out.

River grinned and leaned over the console. "Yes, Sweetie?"

"Why do you call him sweetie?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I call everyone sweetie."

"River, I left my key in my left pocket of my other coat! Could you let me in?"

River laughed. "You haven't learned to snap the doors open yet?"

John seemed irritated. I giggled. "I have, it just doesn't work when the doors are locked! Let me in my TARDIS!"

She rolled her eyes and glanced at me. "He is so demanding. Coming John!"

She made her way down the steps and opened the doors. John tumbled in and quickly turned around in circles. He wiped his forehead in relief. "Good, she's still in one piece. I was worried for a...River, what is wrong with your hair?"

She grinned and placed a hand to her head to model. "Do you like it? I taught Melody how to braid. We did each others."

"Yeah!" I jumped in. "doesn't my hair look cool John?" I pointed to the tightly braided pig-tails that River had given me. It kept a lot of the annoying hairs out of my face, which was just what I needed.

John grabbed my cheeks and moved my head every which way. "Still in one piece. Good." he patted my head. "Melody, you're hair looks amazing." He beamed. "Now, who wants to go to the fuchsia mountains on planet Gratedd?"

River scoffed. "John, we've both had a long day, I think that Melody should be heading home."

I shook my head in protest but at the same time couldn't stop a yawn from escaping . I didn't know how long I'd been there that day, time seemed to stand still when you were on the TARDIS, but when someone mentioned it, I did feel exhausted.

"Oh," John's expression instantly faltered. "But I was only gone a couple of hours. I thought that there would be time to go to..."

"Time moves differently inside the TARDIS, you know that dear." John nodded in defeat. "Okay." he held out his arms for a hug. I gladly gave him one. "I'll be back soon Melody, I didn't mean to be gone so long."

"I know." I said. "It's okay." I knew it wasn't his fault that he'd been gone for about a year. The TARDIS didn't always like listening to him. "Bring River again?" I whispered into his ear.

He laughed but nodded. "Maybe," he said.

"All right." I smiled, and headed for the doors. "I'll see you all later." I started to walk out the door, River quickly waved goodbye and then jumped over to the console behind me with John. "Drop me back off at Stormcage." She said. "You're still late, you know."


	18. Chapter 18: A Good Man

_Hello! For some of you, you may recognize a certain scene from a certain series 6 episode 8 prequel... and if not, I'll include a link. Also, by now since you've been reading this, I'd hope that you're in mostly current who. At least to Lets Kill Hitler I'd think. If not, then none of this would have made sense to anyone. :P  
><em>_okay. I'm done rambling now. You can continue on._

_but I still don't own any of this stuff.  
><em>

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><p>The Doctor waited until Melody was far enough from the TARDIS before he started around the console and sent the ship into the vortex. He leaned over and crossed his arms. "So am I taking you on a date then? Is that why you're so eager to go back to prison? I bet it'll be cool. I always plan to do cool things."<p>

River had a sly smile as she replied. "_You_ aren't taking me anywhere but Stormcage, sweetie."

"It must be cool if you want to go back to prison instead of stick around the TARDIS with me."

River rolled her eyes, but played along. "Who says that it's you taking me on a date?"

The Doctor took a step closer to her, ignoring all personal space. He swallowed nervously. "Oh.." he had thought that River and him... they were... well he kind of liked River. And she liked him... didn't she?

River chuckled and kissed him before turning away. "If you're going to stay parked in the Vortex, then I'm going to go clean up after myself. Mels and I did quite a lot today." She walked farther from the console. The Doctor started to follow her, why not help out? Cleaning could be fun! He was stopped though, by a sound. The console was _talking!_ He stayed where he was standing at the console, as the recording started to play.

_"Oh Blimey,"_ It was the Doctor's voice. He listened closer, trying to remember what this might have been from. "_ okay, probably leave a message at the tone or something. Sorry, I wasn't really trying to do this, I was looking for the brrreaks!" _ The memo ended and then Amy's voice came onto the voice recorder thing.

_"Doctor? Doctor can you hear me? Are you ever gonna hear this? You don't even know you've got an answer phone. How can you be so clever and so completely stupid at the same time?" _Half a smile found it's way to the Doctor's face. He hadn't seen Amy and Rory for what had seemed equivalent half a year. He'd been busy.

_Well, if you can hear this, please pick up the phone. Don't get confused, I'm not invisible or trapped in a space bottle, or something. I'm just talking on the answer phone. So just pick up the phone!" _He scrambled around in search of the phone which all the Ponds had accused him of never answering. When the phone was found he started to reach for it, but withdrew after what his companion said next.

_You said you'd find my baby, you said you'd find Melody, have you found her?" _he gulped but couldn't stop her from saying it. "_Because you promised. I know she's going to be okay, I know she'll grow up to be River, but that's not the point. I don't want to miss a ll those years, you know, I can't stand it. Can't. Please doctor, please. Okay, phone me back when you know something. Please Doctor, at least do that, as soon as you know. Okay? All right, bye."_

The feeling of overwhelming guilt set into him as the message ended. Of course he knew where she was, but he couldn't change anything and he didn't know how to tell them that. He _had_ found Melody, but she couldn't be taken back to them, and where Melody was, he still didn't even know.

"Was that Amy?" River poked her head through the hallway entrance. "Where'd she go?" She approached the console cautiously, having immediately caught the look on the Doctor's face. He tried to fix his composure to look less bothered, but River had already seen. "What's wrong, sweetie?"

"Nothing," he lied. "I..." She saw the blinking light that must have meant that he had a message, and before he could stop her, she pressed the button, and it played all over again. When it reached it's end once more, she looked over at him with worry. "She doesn't know that you can't." He couldn't tell if River had meant that as a statement or a question. Sullenly, he nodded.

"Oh Sweetie," she fixed his bow tie. "I'll go talk to her. They'll find everything out at the end of this summer. You all will." She could tell that the Doctor wanted to be alone. He wouldn't admit it, and if she stuck around a little bit longer she knew that he would quickly jump up and offer to go anywhere that could be considered cool in his mind. She didn't want to leave him in a state like that, but she knew she couldn't help him any other way except to reassure them that, of course, Melody turned out just fine...more or less. "Drop me off at stormcage." she reminded him. "I've got my vortex manipulator, I just need to pick up a few things and then I'll head to Amy and Rory's."

The Doctor was quiet for a moment before he looked up at River. "This is my fault, River."

River smoothed back his hair and looked at him in a way that made the Doctor suspect, even more so, that they were married in his future. He wouldn't ask again though, he knew how vague she could be. "Shhhh, sweetie." she soothed. "You are a good man. Amy and Rory know that. They'll forgive you if you want to tell them."

He swallowed but wouldn't answer back. The TARDIS landed, and he put on a fake smile. "Stormcage."

River smiled back as if she didn't know that he was changing the subject. She kissed him on the cheek before getting up and finding her shoes. He watched her go with a sad smile. He _could _bring Melody back to Amy and Rory, he knew that the little girl would be no match to him. But then, what would that mean for him? He wouldn't have River, and he hated to admit it, but he was beginning to think that he needed her.

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><p>Here is where I got Amy's dialogue at, for you lovely people: .comwatch?v=HRqG64hDs4s&list=PL715CC215E2E8479B&index=17&feature=plpp_video


	19. Chapter 19: Silly Boys

_This was kind of a fun chapter. I guess I kind of have fun with all the chapters, but especially the ones with Amy and Rory...=]_

_So I don't own Doctor Who, shocking I know, especially after eighteen chapters of this stuff, but alas it's true. I am not the amazing people who make Doctor who awesome. I just like writing about the characters, like lots of other people on this site. =P_

_please enjoy._

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><p>Amelia Pond picked up the pace as she walked across the playground to the smartest person she knew. She'd never admit to him that she thought he was a genius, you just don't tell boys things like that, but it was true. Rory could be smart. Especially when it came to Mels being weird. Which she was.<p>

"What is she doing?" Amy asked, her voice was almost accusing, as if it were Rory's fault. She didn't mean it like that, Mels was just being annoying.

Rory jumped, startled and the book he had been reading fell out of his lap. "What do you mean?" he asked, shocked.

"_Her!"_ Amy pointed a finger behind her and sent a glare at Mels. "She's gone bonkers! She's..."

"Trying to kiss Michael Mittbury..." Rory finished. He stood up and stayed behind Amy, finally understanding the urgency of the situation. Mels hated boys. Sometimes Rory even thought that she hated him!

"We aren't supposed to like boys until we're thirteen! Remember!" Amy stared at Rory until he nodded shyly. "We promised! And she's not thirteen, not for a whole nother week!" She stomped her foot and stuck out her lip.

"Well maybe she's just playing around-" Rory started to suggest.

Amy sighed. Rory sometimes didn't understand. She'd thought that he would know what to do, since he actually was really smart, but it seemed like it was all up to her, as usual. "I'm going to talk to her. No one can break a promise to Amy Pond!" she started to go off towards Mels but Rory stopped her.

"Don't. You can tell her later. She's always at your house anyways!" he pulled at her arm but she jerked away.

"Why can't I now? She's right over there!"

"They'll laugh at her!" That stopped Amy. She looked over at her other best friend, who seemed to be putting something on her lips, and sighed. Amy had been made fun of enough to know it was no fun. People never believed her about the Doctor, and then when her parents had started making her go to the therapist(s), it had somehow gotten around to people at school. She got called "Loony Pond" all the time. She knew that she was annoyed with Mels, but not enough to subject her to something like that. Besides, Mels and Rory were the only ones ever there for her anyway.

"Okay," She sat down against the school fence and crossed her arms, pretending to be irritated. "I'll wait til' tonight." Rory sat down beside her with a smile at his "victory". They were so rare when dealing with Amelia Pond.

"So what's the book about?" She asked, but she hardly listened as Rory began to explain.

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><p>"I won't kiss you!" Peter Abernathy shouted as he took another step away from me.<p>

"Oh come on! It can't be too bad. Loads of people do it all the time on the tellie!"

"I wouldn't kiss you in a million years!"

I laughed. That could be arranged. But I wanted to test my new "toy" out on as many boys as I could, so far, Peter was the only one left.

"But Peter!" I cried. "You said it yourself. You're the only twelve year old in our entire class who hasn't kissed a girl yet. Look!" I pulled out the lipstick Madame Kovarian had given me. She said that it'd come in handy one day. She said that it would help me to achieve... something. The red colored one made people act funny. I had been having a whole lot of fun with that one, they all turned into absolute nutters and it was so hilarious. She hadn't told me what the tan one did, but I had been warned not to use it unless I met the Doctor. That was okay though, I was fine with playing with the red lipstick anyway.

"No!" he continued to protest. "You always beat me up and take my lunch money!"

I rolled my eyes. "It's not _my_ fault that Rory was hungry and you wouldn't share!"

"Why not kiss Rory?"

I made a face, reached for his T-shirt and pulled him closer to me like I'd seen couples do on Tv shows. Honestly I always thought that kissing looked kind of gross, but grown ups seemed to like it, and the lipstick was really I liked her or not, Madame Kovarian always gave me cool things.

"Okay!" He finally agreed. "But you can't tell anyone!"

"Of course not!" I said. "And if you tell anyone, I'll push you off of a roof!"

He raised an eyebrow "You have to get me on a roof first."

"Do you think that'll be a problem for me?" I countered.

His eyes widened as he stared at me speechless. "I thought so." I grinned. "Now," I took the lipstick out and smothered it all over my lips. "Lets see how this works on you!"

"That smells funny." He observed. "I changed my mind I don't want to..."

"Too late!" I leaned forward, ready for a good laugh, but something suddenly pulled at my shoulder and instead of seeing the effects of my lipstick on Peter Abernathy, I was staring up at Johns conflicted face.

He looked torn between wanting to laugh and being completely horrified. "Melody Pond! What are you doing?" He took the lipstick out of my hands and started to touch my face but then turned around, looking for a cloth or something I guess.

"Kissing!" I smiled, looking back at Peter. The poor bloke seemed to be petrified. He took one last fleeting glance at John, and then dashed off back to the playground. Everyone had been called back into the building by now.

John didn't seem to notice his escape. "Kissing! but you're... how old are you now?" He found the cloth he was looking for in his right pocket and quickly rubbed all the make up off of my lips.

"Ow!" I growled. "Twelve... but I'll be thirteen in a week!"

"Thirteen..." He looked from me to the capsule in his hand. He set his jaw, a sign that he was angry about something. "You're turning thirteen, and that woman thinks it proper to give you _this_ as a present!" he tossed it up and down a few times and then placed it forcefully in another pocket. "That's bad!"

"It's just lipstick..." I started. "I was going to get Peter with it, but then you showed up. It makes boys do funny things, my friends mum says it's because boys just like girls kissing them, but Madame Kovarian told me herself that this will come in handy!"

John sighed. "That it will..." He cleared his throat and tried to look less angry. "Melody, why were you going to force that little boy to kiss you. It seems rude to..."

"I had to test this out somehow didn't I?" I asked. I didn't mention all the other boys I'd already tested it on. "But Abernathy left... I could try it out on you!" he blushed bright red then, all anger disappeared as he shook his head. "No, no." He said "Not yet... I mean no! That would be weird. Kissing is bad, very bad. When did Madame Kovarian give you that anyways? It's a bit dangerous for a little girl to have." He managed to say Kovarians name like it was a bad taste on his mouth.

"You mean I get to kiss you _someday_?" I teased. I jumped around, pretending to be excited. Okay, well, the pretending wasn't so much pretending as it was over acting my actual excitement. I knew John was older than me, but in my mind, if Amy was planning on marrying the Doctor, who is about 900 years old, I don't see what would be so wrong in marrying John who is probably a lot younger than that.

John's mouth fell open with a loss for words. Finally he grinned and pulled me into a hug. "That's not what I said and you know it." He patted me on the back and then pulled away. "Besides," he continued to smile. "Little girls don't kiss their best friends. You won't be kissing me anytime soon. Ever."

I turned away from him with a grin because little girls _did _kiss their best friends. Maybe not when they're still little, but my parents, Amy and Rory, were perfect examples of that. They're best friends and they had gotten married, and married people kiss all the time. I could kiss anyone I wanted, including my 'best friend', which so happened to be John. He was convinced that I wouldn't kiss him anytime soon. And I figured that he was so _wrong._

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><p><em>Haha the Doctor only wants to kiss River. Poor Mels... <em>


	20. Chapter 20: The Pirate

_Hello all lovely people!  
><em>_I just want to say that I feel horrible for not updating for so long! The good news is that after Friday, I won't have any major big projects to do in any of my classes (except maybe exams, but those aren't hard). This means more time to finish this! Yay!_

_Really, I enjoy writing this more than I like doing anything else at this point and I'm so happy about all of the feedback I'm getting! It just sadly seems like I can't find the time, but don't worry, it will be fixed! Anyways. Off the topic of ME! Happy reading to all!_

_by the way, this far into the chapters... I don't know if I have to say it. But Doctor Who and it's characters are not owned by moi._

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><p>We were walking home after school when it happened.<p>

Amy was a few paces in front of me and Rory. I guess she was mad at me for something. I kept asking Rory why, but he's always going to be more loyal to her than he ever would be to me, and she obviously told him not to tell. That was fine. I would figure it out eventually.

It just made my early birthday a lot less fun when my best mates (and not to mention parents) wouldn't even speak to me. I still had to follow her home though, I mean, I technically lived there with her, even if she didn't know.

I kept trying to start a conversation with her, get her to laugh, but this time, nothing worked. Was that how Rory felt whenever Amy ignored him? It wasn't fun. Rory kept giving me apologetic looks whenever she would send another glare my way. I figured that if there was one thing this scottish girl could do, it was hold a grudge. That definitely wasn't something that I wanted, especially if it would end up being the reason why they wouldn't want me in the future.

We had gone a ways in silence when Rory finally broke it. "Um, is that creepy lady with the eyepatch following us?"

I closed my eyes as we all stopped and hoped that it wasn't who I thought it was. I still didn't know what happened around her, but whenever I was around her, I came back less happy. And it was already turning out to be a crummy end to a good day.

"She's like a pirate" Amy said. She had turned around to join Rory and I. I kept my hands covering my face. Maybe if I stayed like that long enough Kovarian would get annoyed and leave. I'd already seen her that morning when she'd given me the lipstick! I didn't want to see her again.

"_You_ know her!" Amy accused. She poked me in the side. "Mels, who is that?"

I opened my eyes and took my hands away, staring at Amy baffled. It was as if all of her annoyances with me were gone. She was looking at me like she always did again, waiting for me to answer the question. Eventually I muttered a "yeah," and then quickly tried to start walking away again.

"She's looking at you Mels." Rory said. "I think she wants to talk to you."

I growled and pulled both Amy and Rory around to start walking too. "Of course she does! That doesn't mean I bloody have to though!" I silently hoped that she hadn't heard that.

A wide grin rose across Amy's face. She looked back at Madame Kovarian again. "She's your mum." She stated. Then she looked at Rory, and if possible, her smile got even bigger. "That's her mum Rory. Her mums a pirate!"

"She's not a pirate!" I defended. But what was the use? At this point there was no way I'd be able to get away from Kovarian. She was already closer than she had been. I sighed and crossed my arms. "And she's not my mum!" I added for good measure.

"Well, not your _real_ mum." Amy said. She and Rory had come to the conclusion years ago that I lived in foster care. Well, it had actually been Tabatha and Augustus who had asked and assumed, but Amy and Rory believed it. I figured it was easier than telling them that I lived alone above their house in an invisible third story. But it did make my friends curious about why they had never "met" my parents. I guess meeting Kovarian would help them to understand.

She came up to us and gave Amy and Rory a smile that was supposed to look friendly. "Melody, you've got to come to church. We have something for you."

"You go to church?" This seemed to amuse Amy more than the fact that my mum was a "pirate".

"Well..." I started. Was I even allowed to explain what the Church really was? Kovarian had never told me not to, although I don't know how Amy and Rory would have fared knowing that I was training to kill...

Kovarian placed a hand over my shoulder to stop me and brought me to her side. "You wouldn't have heard of it. Now come Melody, we have to go quickly." I started to turn and walk with her. I knew we wouldn't be walking for long. Once my parents got out of eye sight she would pull her manipulator out and we'd then teleport. Still, we had to make it look like there was an automobile somewhere.

"Aren't you going to let her say goodbye to us first?" Amy retorted.

Madame Kovarian turned around with a raise eyebrow. "I'm sorry, what did you say my dear?" My eyes widened as I saw Amy cross her arms, giving back as much attitude to Kovarian as the latter had given to her. I started making motions for her to stop, you can't challenge, talk back, roll eyes or even talk much when around Madame Kovarian. Anything that will get her angry isn't a good thing.

Of course, Rory was the only one to see my motions. He looked back at Amy worried then, but wouldn't stop her or he'd face _her_ wrath. "We're her best mates. I think she should say goodbye to us."

Kovarian turned with her brow still raised but didn't protest. "Very well. Melody, I'll be waiting down the way for you." She walked away then, and once she was out of ear shot I ran over and hugged Amy.

"What was that for?" she asked.

"She didn't yell at you! I thought you would get in so much trouble!"

"I just wanted you to say goodbye to us." Amy growled. "Your mum is rude."

"yeah," Rory added meekly. "I don't much like her."

I rolled my eyes but smiled. "Believe me, no one does."

"You're coming to my house afterwards tonight." Amy stated. "I've got a new shirt that my mum says she likes, but I don't know..." Rory made a "since when does Amy like clothes?" face but didn't say anything. "Okay." I said. It wasn't like I'd be going anywhere else tonight anyway. "I'll see ya then."

"Bye! have fun with the grouchy pirate!" Amy replied. I laughed and then ran after Madame Kovarian so that I wouldn't irritate her even more.


	21. Chapter 21: Melody's Choice

_Okay, and here's more! oooh and we've got some drama going on up in here! Just wanted to notify you all that this is not the end, of the "Have You Found Melody" series. I figured it kinda seemed like it could be, so I wanted to clarify. =D_

___Doctor Who is owned by Steven Moffat and other brilliant people._

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><p>"We've found him." Madame Kovarian stated as we landed smoothly in the "church" corridor.<p>

My heart started beating faster as she said this. I couldn't tell if it was just my instincts kicking in, or if I really was dreading the thought of what her words meant. It wasn't that I didn't know who she was talking about. I had just been preparing myself for more training, and her announcement changed everything.

I couldn't stop thinking about it as Madame Kovarian led me down different empty hallways. It wasn't just the fear that I would fail that had me dreading this event. I also had this small suspicion that when Madame Kovarian uncovered the evil Time Lord, I would recognize him. I'd been trying to deny it since I'd first learned what the Doctor looked like, and what kind of habits he had, but it was hard to hide the fact that John always seemed to be an awful lot like the Doctor.

I didn't know what I'd do if it was John. I was trained to kill an evil man. but "John" had proved to me that he was good. In fact, he was the closest friend I had. Could I still do that? What would the church and the monsters do to me if I didn't? I couldn't tell.

"Madame..." I cautiously started. "Who is it, exactly, that you've caught?"

"The Doctor of course, child." she replied. "You're quite a bright girl. I thought you would have known."

"Of course." I swallowed. "I just wanted to be sure." My hands were beginning to sweat. I unceremoniously wiped them off on my already dirty school shirt.

She took me down one more confusing hallway and then we entered a room that had been completely cleared out except for the man tied to a chair in the middle with a blindfold covering his eyes. He wouldn't shut up about all of the other times he'd been captured and how rude his captors had been to him even then. I tried to hide my disappointment. It was impossible to deny now, John Smith, the man who was telling me not to kiss boys only hours before, was sitting in the chair just a few meters away from me, yabbering about how clever he was.

"Good afternoon Doctor," Madame Kovarian said cynically.

John turned his head towards her and gave an open mouthed smile. "Aha! Finally the head in this operation. Now, I'd like you to tell me why you've taken me here! I haven't done anything wrong, I was just exploring and then you've come and ruined it. I've got a...a sort of date later and I hope you know that if she finds out I'm late again...you'll be getting the brunt of it! She's got a gun and she's a bit too happy to use it, and she'd love to see you again!" he laughed.

"Oh believe me, you won't last that long." Kovarian bantered.

I rolled my eyes. "Did you check his pocket for the screwdriver. He's stalling to burn a hole through the ropes!" I felt that I hid the shake in my voice pretty well.

His face fell as he heard what I'd said. The screwdriver was tossed across the room as Madame Kovarian nodded at something behind him. "Melody?" he asked.

"Hello, _Doctor._" I greeted. Something in my head kept repeating itself, getting louder and more demanding as I stared at the bow tied idiot. _Kill him. Kill the evil Time Lord!_ And he was pretty evil. His nice guy act was just simply that. He didn't _really_ care about anyone but himself. He was selfish and old and horrible! "You lied." I said.

He grimaced. "Well, you see, I had to! You're Melody Pond, I couldn't just stand by and watch you grow up unloved! I'm not changing anything too much! Just..."

"Quiet!" I interrupted. His real motives were falling easily into place in my mind. "I know your real reason. You wanted to get close to me so that I wouldn't carry out my destiny, didn't you!"

"No!" he said. "Blimey Pond! So easy to accuse, just like your mother!"

"Hey!" I warned.

He gulped but continued on. "I couldn't care less about my own life. Well, I mean I could a little bit, but I know my time is coming! The TARDIS can't hide everything from me and this is not that time!"

"Time can be rewritten." I argued.

"Not this time." he didn't give any other explanations and grew quiet. If it were possible, he looked like he'd gotten sad or depressed all of a sudden. I wondered if he'd given up. I didn't even have a weapon yet!

"You see Doctor, this is what happens when you try to meddle with what must be done." Kovarian gave a box to something that then held it out to me. I looked up to see who it was, but forgot instantly when I looked back down to the box. It had an assortment of different hand guns, all decent looking. I picked one at random and aimed it at the Doctor. Madame Kovarian laughed cynically. "Any last words before you meet your end Doctor?"

I looked over at the gun in my hands again, thinking that this was all _so wrong._ I was supposed to battle the Doctor, not hold him at gunpoint while he was tied up defenselessly and couldn't even see what was coming. This was supposed to be more violent and _challenging._ The way that it was set up now seemed unfair. He seemed innocent while I seemed like the bad guy. How could that happen?

"Yeah, I'll have a few." He retorted. Although he couldn't see, he turned his head toward me. "Melody, this isn't for me. It's for you. For your _future!_"

"My future is here." I said keeping my grip firm on the gun.

"It is! Just not yet!" he set his jaw the way he does when he's trying to hide his feelings.

_He's lyng! Don't let the evil man fool you!_

He continued to talk, and for a moment I wasn't sure what he was saying because the monsters, I was pretty sure the voices that told me things to do were caused by them, were standing behind me trying to convince me. I didn't need convincing though.

I had gotten closer and closer to him as he'd babbled on, and he'd noticed. When I placed the cold metal against his chest he panicked. "No! Melody listen! You can't do this, or...or..."

"Or what?" I growled

The Doctor was pensive, finally he replied. "River. Remember River?" there was regret in his voice.

I crossed my arms. He sighed in relief. "What about her?"

He was smiling now, which really set my teeth on edge. "You'd never become her...well, actually I don't know how you regenerated into River...but she's you!"

"What kind of game are you playing?" I asked. Madame Kovarian looked displeased. If I didn't do something soon, I'd be hearing from her. Still I didn't point the gun back at him.

"No games!" he said. Everyone behind me was trying to discourage this. They didn't want me to listen, and Kovarian was yelling now. I knew though, that none of them would step in the way. This was _my_ destiny, and if Kovarian wanted this to have the ironic affects that she had planned for, then I was the only one who could fulfill it. "It's all true, and I know it's spoilers. Forgive me if you ever remember this..."

"Why wouldn't I remember?" I had an edge to my voice as I asked.

"The silence." He swallowed. "they've got to be in here, and they're controlling you. You'll forget. Just like I will. " I wanted to disagree with him, but I knew it was true. Only moments before seeing him in the chair I had questioned my ability to fulfill what was needed to be done if it was "John". But once I'd walked in, it was like a switch had flipped, and there was only one thing I wanted to do, and that was killing the Doctor. They were controlling me. They had for all my life. And just like he had said, I couldn't remember a thing, and probably wouldn't.

"Why are you letting him talk?" Kovarian rooted in. "Have you forgotten what you were made to do?"

"Hold on! I'm not done with my last words yet!" The Doctor shouted. "Just one more thing. Then it's you're choice Melody. You should just know that Amy and Rory, they love you. Very much. You'll get to be with them one day, but not if you kill me now..."

I looked down at him confused. It didn't make sense, but I believed him. Everything he had just said contradicted what Madame Kovarian had always told me, but it was what I _wanted_ to be true. But here was my chance, this moment was what I had been training for my entire life. I could only remember my training in the presence of the "silence", but even without them, it had been drilled into my brain that I had to do this. It all felt like a gut reaction, an instinct. I had never expected for it to be so easy, to just have him handed over to me, but it _was_ my destiny I had to fulfill .

"Fine!" I had come to a decision. I put the gun in my pocket and took off the blindfold to glare at him. "But you lied." I repeated from earlier.

"Rule one my dear Pond: The Doctor always lies. Now get me out of..."

I was grabbed by the arms by two of the "Silence" and pulled away from the Doctor as Madame Kovarian came closer. He wasn't scared of her, although her expression wasn't one to bring a smile to anyone's face, instead he only scowled. "Consider this a warning for what is to come Doctor," She said. "her heart is not cold enough yet, but with time, it can be. Never meddle with my plans again." She turned to the monsters holding me. "Remove all memory of each other from them both! We can't have her doing this when the real time comes." I struggled and kicked against them, but it didn't work. More silence seemed to come out from no where, and were surrounding the Doctor as well. When I looked away, only for a second, he was gone.


	22. Chapter 22: Earth Food

_Oh! I forgot to mention right after spring break... I went to New York during spring break. My friends and I were there that week that Doctor Who was filming in Central Park. And believe it or not, we were actually IN Central Park when they were filming...just not in the right part. =/_  
><em>yeah. I'm the only fan of Doctor Who out of my friends, but I was so sad after that! Oh well. Can't wait for series 7! <em>  
><em>Soooo moving along. He's back in the TARDIS again! And we get... RIVER! It's probably a bit unhealthy how much River is my favorite character on this show. Rory is my second favorite... but I just really love River, all versions of her! <em>  
><em>Also, I hope you enjoy this chapter too! Some part of me thinks that it's kind of funny! =P<em>

_and Gosh darnit! I don't own Doctor Who! =[_

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><p>The Doctor woke up with his face stuck against the TARDIS floor. He sat up groggily and placed a hand to his head. "Hello dear, what happened?" he asked. The TARDIS hummed a tune inside his head, but wouldn't give any specific answer.<p>

"Hello sweetie." River Song greeted in a sing songy voice. The Doctor looked up to see the woman sitting across from him with her feet up on the console. He didn't like that much, but the TARDIS didn't seem to be complaining. She was eating some kind of sandwich.

"River! What are you doing here?" He rubbed his head, his mind felt... different.

River took her time answering, taking another bite and then seemingly spending the moment thinking of a decent answer. Finally she spoke up. "Well the food at Stormcage is rubbish and I'm a bit famished."

"Peanut butter?" he could smell it now that he was coming to his senses.

She nodded with a smile. "And jellie! Would you like some?" She held the sandwich out to him, offering a bite. He made a face. "No! Not earth food! That's gross!"

River laughed and continued to eat her sandwich. "It's more appealing than fish fingers and custard, dear."

He grinned and stood up, leaning closer to her in an attempt at flirting. It was always amusing to River when she ended up meeting younger versions of the Doctor. Although she was sure that this was the same Doctor that had picked her up weeks before from Stormcage, on their anniversary no less, she knew that he was still younger than what she was normally used to. At least he wasn't too young, he still recognized her. She never knew what she'd do if-no when that day came.

"Fish fingers and custard are good!" he retorted. "Any Time Lord would agree!"

"I wouldn't." River teased.

"You're mad. That's why!" he concluded.

"Me?" River shook her head and laid her sandwich down in a space for it on the console. "You're the one who appeared out of the blue on the TARDIS floor. Where _were_ you anyway?"

The Doctor's smile faltered as he tried to remember. He scratched his head and then his cheek and looked over to her. "I uh... I don't know. I was searching for Melody... all summer, or, more than all summer with the TARDIS. Wibbly wobbly space travel summer. But I don't know where I was before I came back in here. Verona possibly."

River chuckled to hide her sudden discomfort. She didn't liked discussing her past too much... "Verona? Doctor, You will never find her in Verona."

He seemed conflicted then, caught up in his racing thoughts. He let out a half hearted "And why not?"

"Sweetie," she started. "Melody was trained to be your assassin," She straightened his bow tie. "She's not much a fan of Shakespeare, or anything that you may think is _romantic._ Not yet."

The Doctor was distracted for a brief second by what she had said. He still didn't know her completely, although he knew that she was Amy and Rory's daughter, and that she was somehow tied to his future... she was still a big mystery to him. And that was exciting! "Do _you _ think it's romantic?" he asked. Within seconds of asking, his cheeks began to turn a light pink.

River grinned in her mischievous way "Spoilers."

"What a terrible word!"

"It's your word dear."

"Well, let's change it!" He sat down where River had been only moments before. "Let's try answering questions truthfully this time, without any of this "spoilers" nonesense."

River crossed her arms. "I'm listening." She wouldn't do it, but she'd listen.

"Well, I just... I want to know if I'll ever find Melody. I can't let Amy and Rory down you know."

She opened her mouth but couldn't respond. She'd thought he'd been joking about spending a whole summer looking for her. She had already gone to Amy and Rory and tried to tell them to have patience with him. And she knew that he had already found her, he had been spending weeks prior with Mels, and even River had had a day with her. Was he trying to trick her? She couldn't think that way because then her training would try to kick in. But why would he ask something like that? Had he really...

"You... can't remember." She finally figured.

"Remember what?" He looked at her with a childish gleam of hope in his eye. He knew he was missing something, somehow, and it crushed her hearts. He really couldn't remember. And now she understood why she couldn't remember him ever appearing before the day she had gone to Berlin. Before the adventure in America, she would have never understood why both their memories had disappeared from them, but now, she knew. Something must have happened, the Silence must have found out and erased their memories of each other. He didn't even know...

"River, I've spent the entire summer searching for...for you! Just tell me what I need to remember!"

Once again River bent down to fix his bow tie. It was more of a habit than the fact that he actually needed it fixed. He didn't seem to mind though. She stood back up and began putting coordinates into her vortex manipulator. "Put on your new coat Doctor." She put on an encouraging face and smiled. "You'll have to look nice for what you've got to do next."

"River Song!" he shouted. "Tell me what..."

"Spoilers!" she called one last time and then zapped herself back to Stormcage, leaving an unfinished peanut butter and jellie sandwich still sitting on the console where she had left it.


	23. Chapter 23: Food Fight

_Sorry for the delay in updates! So this next part is in two parts because I felt like when I looked at it, it was too long. This first part is real short, but still I think it's for the best. haha  
>Hopefully I'll get the second part up pretty soon considering it's done. As long as my last week of school doesn't somehow find a way to interfere. =P<br>So, I hope you enjoy this first part!_  
><em>and I don't own any of the characters except for the teachers and students that may be mentioned.<em>

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><p>Rory pushed through the heavy double doors of the cafeteria, out into the school hallway. At first, he made a notable effort to try and keep up with his friend who was storming father away from him down the hallway, but it didn't take him long to realize that he probably wouldn't catch her. "Mels! Stop walking so fast!" he called. The girl pretended as if she didn't hear him and trudged on. Rory, still angry about what had previously transpired in the lunch room, sighed deeply and stopped walking all together. "Stop running and talk to me Mels!" he shouted after her.<p>

Mels did as Rory had ordered with a surprise in her eye. Rory hardly ever raised his voice. He knew he was shy and reserved often, but Mels would never listen to him unless he was as loud as she was. "What?" she asked.

Rory took a deep breath. "Why did you do that? Now you'll get in trouble and..." He wouldn't admit he was worried about her. She got in trouble so much that it almost seemed ridiculous to be worried about how she'd handle it this time... even if the circumstances were different and she hadn't done it just because she was bored.

Mels was quick to fire back, she didn't even give Rory a chance to finish his sentence, not that he was going to. "You sure wanted to too!" She crossed her arms and smirked. "I was angry, you were angry, we should be happy that I got to her before you could!"

"What does that mean?" Rory looked at her confused. He'd never hit someone, even if he wanted to, and with Cait Morrigan, he did want _someone_ to knock her a good one, but not him!

Mels started to laugh as Rory continued to wonder what was so funny. "Sorry Rory, I just think of romans sometimes whenever you're around."

Rory scratched his head at her as she got the rest of her laughs out. Finally he said "Well I'm not." He concluded. Then he pivoted from one foot to the other. "Mels, I wouldn't have done that to anyone... her nose might be broken!"

"but you would." She argued. "I saw you ball your hands up into fists! And that's why we've got to go somewhere so the principal doesn't find us. Just for now." She started to pull at Rory's sleeve, but he resisted.

"We can't leave school. That'll get us in more trouble."

"Oh come on Rory!" she drawled. "Do you really want to get in trouble?"

He turned his head towards the cafeteria and pointed. "It's still going on, we could go tell someone it was a mistake before..."

"No!" Mels shook his shoulders! "You don't tell teachers that it was a bloody mistake when you're standing up for..." They both stopped in their tracks as the doors opened. Rory's heart started to beat fifty miles in one second. What would he tell his mum? She didn't like Mels too much...

A moment of relief came over them as it was only Amy who was walking out of the doors. "Don't tell her what Cait said." Mels warned. Amy walked over to them and cocked a hand on her hip. "What are you guys doing?" She had a look in her eye that told them that they needed a very good reason for not including her in a secret. "I was in the lunch line and then everyone was throwing food at everyone..." She turned an accusing eye to Mels, "You did it, didn't you!"

"I what?" Mels looked offended. "Just because I get in trouble a lot doesn't mean I did it this time!"

Amy turned to Rory. "Did she do it."

He couldn't help but crack a smile. "Yeah." he admitted. Then he turned an apologetic glance at Mels, but she wasn't at all that angry.

"We need to go!" she said. "I've got a place we could hang around today. At least for a little bit. It'll be fun, just the three of us!"

"but what did you do?" Amy wouldn't let it go.

Mels waved it off, "I'll tell you later. Now we've got to hurry, the food fight is probably over and they'll be looking for who did it."

Amy rolled her eyes but nodded. "Okay, lets go."


	24. Chapter 24: Drawings

_Aaaannnddd here's part two. I got the journal idea from the fanfic by JaneScarlett called The Lost Days Of Melody Pond, so I won't claim originality on that. But I will suggest that if you haven't already, you should read it, because it's good. ^.^_

_I don't own Doctor Who or the characters, and I don't even own the journal idea. please continue to enjoy anyways. =]_

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><p>I brought them to this old one story building that must have been a flat or something at one point. It was empty and abandoned now, except for the few places I had made into a little hideaway. No one knew about this place, not even Madame Kovarian. I was almost hesitant about bringing Amy and Rory to it, but I knew that they could be trusted. It wasn't like I hid any secrets there anyways.<p>

We reached the gate and Amy stared at me as if she was worried. "What?" I asked.

"This place is creepy Mels." She noted.

I looked over at my hideout and grinned. "No, it's just old. Now come on."

We slid under the old rotted fence and then made our way to the front. Rory tried to open the door, but of course it wouldn't budge. "It's locked." He started to turn around, like he still wanted to go back to the school and tell.

"Oh no you don't." Amy grabbed him by the back of the t-shirt and pulled him back at the door. "This'll be fun. We're skipping school." I smiled back at her as I picked the lock and we found our ways inside. Dust shimmered in the light through the windows as we entered.

"Sorry that it's boring during the day." I mentioned, but they didn't seem to hear. They were looking around the place, oblivious to every word I had said. It didn't matter to them that showing them my secret hideout kind of made me nervous, or that at night time, you could see so many stars through the holes in the roof falling apart above our heads. They probably only wanted to know how I found such a dump, and why I would bring them there.

Suddenly Amy giggled. "That's Mr. Bryant's telescope. How did you get that?"

I watched the two cautiously for signs of something similar to disgust. The place was no where near as nice as either of theirs, but I found it to be sort of cool. At least I could stay away from the white monsters here. Amy seemed like she didn't notice at all, and Rory continued to snoop around.

I shrugged, figuring it was safe to respond without anyone hating the place. "He went to a meeting one day and I wanted it more than he ever would."

"You don't know that..." Rory started.

Amy rolled her eyes. "He didn't even notice it was missing until a week later Rory. Stop being so good, stupid head."

"I'm not stupid." he said faintly. Amy turned to me with a smile. "It's cool. can you actually see anything at night?"

I nodded. "Yeah. All kinds of things, stars and planets and shooting stars."

"Planets are too far away to see." She corrected. I didn't have a chance to tell her that you could, if you fixed up some of the magnification mechanics inside the telescope, because Amy changed the subject too quick. "And you stole these from the chemistry room! Mels!" she tried to be serious, although it didn't work.

"Oi!" I took the beakers away from her and started putting them back in their place. "It's not stealing if it's for education!" We both tried to suppress our laughs as we waited for Rory to tell us otherwise, he tended to like the science teachers. He didn't though, he was being quiet...quieter than usual that is. We both turned to stare at him. He had his nose stuck in some kind of book.

Amy cleared her throat and he looked up startled. "Oh," He said nervously. Then he looked at the beakers in my hands and sighed. "Mels, you're weird." He looked back down at the book as Amy laughed again and my eyes widened with horror. It wasn't just a book that Rory had, it was my journal!

"Give me that!" I crashed into him as I tried to grab at the deep blue book.

"Ow! Mels! What's wrong?" Rory cried. I got the book out of his hands, pushed away from him, and sat on it. He was a boy, he wouldn't think of trying to get it now... although Amy still would.

"That's private! No one's supposed to see it," I tried to keep my voice level, but it raised a bit with emotion.

Rory looked confused. "But they're nice!" he looked over at Amy then, asking for her support. She crossed her arms. "You never told us you could draw."

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. I _couldn't_ draw. I mean, I had a few drawings in there of things that had happened to me, but they didn't get much better than stick men. What had Rory seen?

"Give it to me." Amy demanded, curiosity getting the best of her.

"No." I tried to press all of my weight onto the book, which really wasn't much of a match for my ginger friend. I might be good at fighting, but I'd never hit Amy, which she knew gave her an unfair advantage. After flailing about for a good two minutes to make it harder for her, she finally got a hold of the book and sat across my stomach so that I couldn't get up. She opened it and looked inside before I could even try to stop her.

"He's right!" she smiled. "These are good."

"What are you talking about!" I finally shouted. They had to be joking.

"These!" she stuck the book in my face. All I could see was my writing, except... it was in Gallifreyan. Which they couldn't read. To them, they were just a bunch of pretty circles.

I sighed with relief and then pushed Amy off of me. "Oh those." I played along. "Yeah, sometimes... when I'm bored I just doodle them."

"They're cool." Rory stated.

Amy continued to look through the pages as Rory glances over her shoulder. Every once and a while, when he didn't think she'd notice, he'd look at her instead, but he'd quickly look back to the book. I had to smile, he'd been getting more nervous and embarrassed around her every day. Before I don't think he had ever liked her in any other way other than being friends, but you could tell that that mentality was starting to change for him. And who could blame him? Just barely fourteen and my mum was already losing her slight chubbiness and was becoming gorgeous.

I got up and started to pick up the beakers I had dropped while taking Rory out, as they unknowingly flipped through pages of bits and pieces of my entire life. It got kind of calm in the old rundown hideout. One time Amy asked me if the circles meant anything, because there were so many, and I had to lie, and then they made fun of my stick figures a little bit until Amy gasped in shock.

"What?" I leaned over her and Rory's shoulder. They were staring at two pictures that I had probably done my very best on, and couldn't remember drawing at all. The first one was of a man with a bow tie and braces. He had a goofy grin and floppy hair. Looking at the picture often made me feel happy and safe, although I had no clue who he was. The second one was of the monsters, the "silence" I think. It was staring at us through the page with its black soulless eyes, daring us all to look away.

"I... I saw this." Amy stuttered. "The night the Doctor left me. It came in my room through the crack, before it disappeared, and told me that the raggedy man was bad and would never come back for me."

I raised an eyebrow. "They're right you know." I let slip. Amy turned around to glare at me.

"Who's right?" Rory asked.

"How do you know what the Doctor looks like Mels?" Amy asked. She pointed to my picture of the man with the bow tie and floppy hair. I felt like we'd been talking about something else, but I couldn't remember what. "You used to talk about him enough!" I joked.

Amy continued to glare and then slammed my journal shut. "Well, you're not perfect either Mels! Why don't you tell me what happened earlier today at lunch? We all know that _you _ did it!"

I growled. Why did she have to be so defensive about that stupid man? He didn't deserve the time and devotion that she spent on him, and yet he'd always get it, even if it meant giving up her only child one day, she would! I grabbed my journal and stormed out of the hideout. They could find their own way home, or maybe the Doctor would come and show them the way. I didn't care.

As I stepped outside the door I stopped to adjust the book better. I could hear Rory's soft voice inside trying to comfort her. "She wasn't mad at you, Amy. Mels just threw Cait's lunch tray in her face for saying that you were a nutter for believing in the Doctor..."

"But I thought she hated the Doctor," Amy sighed.

I wanted to leave, but what they were saying kept me intrigued. It took a moment for Rory to reply, "I think she does... but she doesn't want to."

My hearts started to beat faster inside my chest. _Had _Rory actually understood some of the things that I'd put into my journal? How could he know that the only reason I really resented the Doctor was because he wasn't there for Amy? None of Madame Kovarian's conditioning seemed to work on me anymore. Of course I pretended like they did, but they didn't. Did Rory know? Did he somehow find out? I doubted it, he couldn't read Gallifreyan, but still it was a close scare.

"How do you know?" Amy asked.

Again it seemed like it took a while for him to answer. "Her words and actions aren't the same." he explained.

Everyone was quiet with his last sentence. I could hear them _breathing. _I pulled the journal out and turned to the page with the bow-tied man. Could he really be the Doctor? For years that picture had made me feel better and had comforted me. He had to be someone else, it felt like he was... but deep down I knew the truth. I felt like I always had.

"You know? You're actually the weird one, Rory." Amy announced. I could imagine Rory blushing at her attempt to lighten the mood. With a deep breath I realized I'd have to keep an eye out for him. He was smarter than either Amy or I had ever given him credit for.


	25. Chapter 25: Not The Wedding Type

_Oh boy it's been a while! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and story alerted or favorited this story so far! You guys are da bomb! =P  
>So I'm just cutting to the point here. If this chapter feels kind of like a filler chapter, I guess it kinda is. Now that "John Smith" isn't in her life anymore, the years are going to go by a little bit faster. Still, I enjoyed writing this chapter a lot. =D<em>

_Oh Doctor Who, if only you were mine... but you aren't, so I can only dream._

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><p>Amy shut the door on her mum as she started to walk in, about to ask us to do more "chores" for her. I flopped down on her bed, along with Rory who had already taken up most of the space. I pushed him aside so that I could have a spot too, then he rested his head back on my stomach.<p>

"No mum!" Amy whined. "We don't want to clean the windows! Leave my friends alone!" Tabetha Pond protested for a few seconds more before heaving a big sigh and then supposedly leaving down the hallway. Amy walked over to the bed and grabbed Rory's legs for a place to sit. He raised them up until she got comfortable and then rested them back on her lap.

If he hadn't been protesting about how much he liked her, I would have said that they looked like a cute couple. But I would have gotten a hit from both of them. So for once I kept my trap shut. I laid my arm over my forehead and started to fall asleep as we all remained silent throughout the room. At some point Amy grabbed a hold of her old cardboard TARDIS, and started tossing it up and down with a spin every now and then. Eventually she grew bored with even the spinning TARDIS and sighed loudly. I opened one eye to see her glaring right at me. "What?" I asked.

"What's wrong with you two?" Her voice raised in pitch. "It's Friday! Time to party! Time to act like normal teenagers and get… groovy." At "groovy" she raised an eyebrow to Rory who laughed at her sarcastic tone. "We're not normal teenagers." He joked.

"Still, going to a party might be fun." She crossed her arms and looked away.

"Sorry." Rory yawned. "We're just tired is all." He sat up and stretched. "My mum's been driving me crazy with the wedding preparations, she's got me going everywhere for her!" then he looked at me knowingly. "And Mels is having nightmares."

"What?" Suddenly I was very alert. I'd never mentioned anything about… "Nighmares? What makes you think that?" I didn't mean to, but I could guarantee that my eyes were wide.

Rory looked back at me, thoughtful. "Well, you've had a few in class, including today in history. And you're always tired. Plus, every once and a while you have got cuts and bruises." He shrugged. "Sometimes when someone has nightmares they can get hurt. It's called…"

"Yes, Dr. Rory." I sighed. "I get it. You don't have to get into all that _boring_ medical stuff!"

He looked down at his hands then. "I don't think it's boring." He muttered. I bit my lip wishing I could take it back.

"Well," I tried. "Maybe I have been. Don't know why though."

Amy suddenly grinned mischievously. "It's your scary pirate mum. I have nightmares about her too." She sat up straighter and did her best Madame Kovarian voice. "Arrrgh clean your room Melody!"

I laughed and made some stuff up to join in too. "ARRG! Dust the windows! I'm allergic to work!" we had just dusted Tabetha's windows before we'd come in…

We both fell back down on the bed laughing. Rory laughed for a little bit too, but I guess he was still stuck on trying to diagnose me. "What are they about Mels?" he interrupted.

I instantly stopped laughing and looked over warily at Amy. I couldn't tell them that they were about the Doctor, because some part of Amy deep down still thought that he'd come. No matter how much I wanted them to know, I couldn't. So I shrugged instead. "I don't know. Just been up late watching scary movies on the tellie I guess."

Rory nodded, so did Amy, but they both still stared at me like they knew that that wasn't the full truth. Finally Rory said something. "My mum won't let me watch those movies!"

"but we're fourteen! That's old enough to watch whatever we want!"

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me. Books are better anyway." I rolled my eyes.

"So she's really serious about this?" Amy asked.

Rory nodded miserably. You could tell that even the idea of the wedding made him exhausted. His mum had volunteered to help with the planning of the wedding of his cousin. Unfortunately, his cousin had decided to just drop all responsibilities onto her, and so Rory was stuck doing everything a long with her. In all honesty, I couldn't blame him for being so tired. It was a better excuse than being tired because of nightmares about a man in a spacesuit and a redhead with a gun. "She actually likes it." He explained. "Although, I don't think that I can quite say the same." He ran his fingers through his hair, a sign that he was also nervous. I quirked an eyebrow. "The wedding is next week." He started. "And I've got to… to have a date to sit with."

Amy raised an eyebrow as well. "Well that's stupid! Why would you need a date to go to a family members wedding?"

He shrugged again. "Well, I mean, they don't want anyone to be bored. And it wouldn't be a _real_ date…" He blushed, as I grinned at the two.

Amy's eyes glimmered. "Ask Kasey Allen! She likes you!"

"She what?" he looked shocked. "Ew no! I don't… I don't like her!"

"Oh." Amy dramatically placed her fist under her chin in thought. "How about another girl from school. A lot of girls like you Rory." She looked at him a little bit possessively.

He continued to shake his head. "No. I don't want someone I don't know. Why can't you come? You're my best friend, both of you! I don't wanna be bored."

Amy disagreed. "Don't ask me. Ask Mels. I'm not the wedding type."

Rory looked at me, pleading. "No." I protested. "Nuh-uh! I don't _do_ weddings!" I didn't want to, but it was hard to fight Rory when he looked at anyone in that "you owe me a lot" way.

He was looking at Amy that way too. "Come on!" he tried. "It'll be fun! The three of us like usual. Besides, what would you guys do if you don't go to the wedding? Stay here and talk about girl stuff?"

"Ew!" Amy said as I agreed with a "Blimey are you crazy?"

Rory smiled. "See? At least we'll have cake."

Amy crossed her arms over her chest and blew at her bangs. "Fine." She growled.

I nodded hesitantly and glared at him. "Maybe." I said.

Rory continued to stare at me. "Come on Mels. With you there, they wouldn't ogle over me and talk about how much I've grown!"

"You're not much to ogle." I joked. Amy looked like she disagreed but quickly covered it up with a giggle.

"You should cut your hair." She concluded. I pulled at a few strands for emphasis.

"Ow Mels!" he held his head where the few hairs had been, then he turned to Amy. "What?"

Amy shrugged. "If you get a cut, then they won't recognize you. Problem solved." She grinned again. "I've got some scissors still in my wardrobe…" Her eyes met mine and I suppressed a laugh as I jumped up and dashed towards the drawer. I quickly grabbed them and came back over. "I've got them Amy, just tell me how much to cut." I laughed.

Rory bent over to cover his head protectively. "None! I like my hair as it is!" He was trying to grow out a ponytail… he'd been ever since I could remember actually.

"We sure don't!" I continued. Rory stood up then and ran out of the bedroom. Amy and I both looked at each other and nodded. "Get him." Amy ordered.

"Yes mam." I agreed.

We chased him down the stairs and through the kitchen and had gotten halfway back to the stairs again when Augustus grabbed a hold of my shoulders and took the scissors out of my hands. Tabetha was standing next to him. She looked terrified. "What?" Amy asked, she already sounded annoyed.

"You girls know not to run with scissors." He said.

"Actually sir," I started. "My parents run with scissors all the time. What's wrong with it?"

Tabetha's eyes grew wide as the words left my mouth. She shook her head and looked disapprovingly at me. "It's _dangerous!" _She scolded.

Augustus pocketed the scissors and took his wife's hand. "Amelia, we're going to the grocery." He looked to Rory and then left a lingering glance on me. "I suggest you three stay downstairs and out of trouble until we come back."

Amy sighed. "Okay, Dad."

Augustus and Tabetha walked out the door, as we settled on the steps. Amy and I sat down first, and then Rory sat on a step under us. She started to mindlessly play with his hair. "We'll get it someday, you know." She teased. "I can't be friends with someone with such atrocious hair like yours."

Rory playfully swatted her hand away. "You'll never catch me alive." He said confidently.

"Just watch us!" I joked.


	26. Chapter 26: Someone's Missing

_If this ones seems to be really long... it's probably because it is. I couldn't find a place that I wanted to break it where it would still seem okay. So, sorry if you don't like long chapters. And sorry if the end seems a little bit sped up. I tried. Still I really hope you enjoy it, and thanks again so much to those who read/review/story alert/favorite etc._

_yo no... never mind. after 4 years in spanish class, you'd think I'd know how to say it... I don't own Doctor Who! =P_

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><p>Rory stopped his studying for a moment when he thought he heard a sound at the window. Both he and Amy looked up from the different activities they'd been doing with a glint of fear in their eyes. At the wedding, their friend had told them stories. Stories that most would believe to be very outlandish and too mad to believe, but for the two other friends among the trio, they'd believed in things like a flying space man and invisible cracks in the wall for years. Added stories about even more scary aliens was just another story that would be hard <em>not<em> to believe. Especially for Amy Pond. She had put her faith into these stories too easily, and still secretly waited for the raggedy man to reappear. She always denied it, but of course Rory Williams could read her like she was one of his favorite books.

After a moment of silence at the window, Amy glanced over to Rory who gave her the same "I don't know" look that she was giving him. She shrugged and they returned back to what they were doing; Amy had reached a new level on a computer game that had been recently installed on Rory's computer, and Rory had just read the same sentence over again by accident for about the fifth time. They were both very bored.

A second of two later there was another sound at the window. Rory got up this time to go check it out. "Stop Rory! It might be something." Amy warned. Rory sent a smirk her way, as if she was being silly or ridiculous but turned around and gulped. He hoped that there was simply a cat, or a branch, scratching at the window and not something bound to kill them.

He walked up to the window and reached for the blinds to pull. Before they were up all the way, a face appeared looking through the window. Rory made a girlish squeal sound and jumped away from the window. Amy was suddenly giggling as she took his place at the window and moved the latch to unlock it. "Relax Rory, it's only Mels!" she made her way back to Rory's spinny chair as Mels let herself in.

The girl was gasping for breath. "Rory you should have seen your face!" She choked. "All I wanted was for you to let me in and you had the funniest face, mate!"

Rory sat down at his bed and rolled his eyes. Would Mels ever grow out of… whatever she was doing? It didn't seem likely, and quite frankly, she shouldn't have been there. "Mels, you can't be here." He said, instant guilt panged in his chest.

Mels raised an eyebrow. "oh, and why not?" She looked behind her where her entrance had been. "I'd say I did a pretty good job finding my way. And I'm here right now, so I can."

He shook his head. As much as he'd like for Mels to stay, she always made things a bit more _interesting_, he didn't want to get in trouble. And that was something that Mels was too good at.

Mels sat on Rory's dresser and looked down at him. "Who's gonna know?"

He bit his lip. "Mum will if she comes up here." He looked away. "She's… not too fond of you at the moment."

Mels' mouth dropped open. "Not to…Not to fond of _me!_ But I saved the day! Did she not see what had happened?"

Rory shook his head. "Still, she blames you for Jeremy. No one believes you about how he went missing."

"I believe you." Amy interjected. Rory nodded. He'd actually seen it, he believed Mels too. Convincing his mother, though, that aliens had been at his cousins wedding was something entirely different. She had banned Rory from ever seeing Mels again. In a way, he thought that it was quite odd, because she hadn't completely done anything wrong. But his mum was just temperamental and thought Mels to be a wedding ruiner...maybe that was why Mels had said she didn't do weddings.

Mels smiled. "Well, that's just terrible." She didn't seem to care too much. "But I just climbed up the side and onto the bloody roof to crawl through a cobwebbed window so I could be around my friends. She'll just have to grow up."

Amy laughed then and Rory joined in quickly. The image of Mels standing up to his mum and telling her to "grow up" was very funny.

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><p>I guess that the wedding was just proof that even when I try doing good things, I'll still be the bad guy.<p>

The wedding was _boring._ Rory's cousin and the man she was marrying we're both pretty. They had picked a very pretty garden with statues placed here and there for "beautiful" decorations, they both had nice hair and pretty eyes, and they were both so happy and in love with each other that it nearly made me sick. I wanted to pull a gun out and cause a distraction long enough to get away from them all.

Despite what Rory had said, his older relatives still stood over him and repeatedly told him how much he'd grown and how 'handsome' he was becoming. Amy and I had bolted after one of his aunts had settled in on telling us how adorable we were as his friends.

"Do you think he'll be mad at us?" Amy asked. We were hiding underneath one of the tables, both of us skinny enough to fit, and we'd stolen some biscuits from the concession table.

"Who cares?" I commented. "He'll get over it real quick."

"But he didn't want to come here." She stuffed another one into her mouth.

"I didn't want to come here." I growled. I knew that we all didn't, but I shouldn't have given in so easily. The cake wasn't even that good. We'd already stolen a piece off the back.

"I know you two are under here." Rory poked his head under the table cloth. He looked a bit disappointed in us. "What?" I asked, still grumpy.

"Just… I expected a better hiding spot." He smiled.

I rolled my eyes as we pulled him in before anyone could see (although, someone probably did see.)

"The best man has gone missing." Rory announced. "No one knows where he is but the wedding is postponed until then."

"Good can we go home then?" I asked.

"Shhhh" they both put their fingers to their lips.

"We've got to get you a volume button Mels." Amy joked.

"Scoot over." I pushed Rory closer to Amy in the most inconspicuous way I possibly could. They ended up squished together while I had just enough room. Amy about pushed Rory back at me but he had seen it coming and had leaned backwards out of the way of her pushing hands.

"Now I'm squished!" she whined.

"oh boo-hoo!" I taunted. Generally I wouldn't be so mean, especially to Amy, but I really didn't enjoy being there. Every minute that went by was spent in white frosting filled agony. It was so boring.

Eventually Tabetha found us. She was still weary of me after the scissors incident and had recently been in a panic because the best man had indeed gone missing and she had been scared that whatever had "taken" the best man must have taken her daughter as well.

I was stuck barely listening to her lecture onto us about how we shouldn't be doing silly things like hiding under tables and running with scissors at our age when something caught my eye. It felt like the garden, or something in it, had moved.

I looked around to see if anyone else had seen it, but Amy and Rory both had their eyes on Tabetha as she droned on. When I glanced back, it had changed again. There were two statues a few meters away that I was sure hadn't been the before.

My mind began racing, trying to think of the reason that they looked so familiar. Madame Kovarian was always preparing me for something, and although I didn't know what it was, I always seemed to know a lot about extraterrestrial beings. It got to the point where I couldn't hear Tabetha at all as I continued staring at the lady statues. The words _don't blink, don't blink_ continued to run through my mind, and I could feel that it had some kind of connection to whatever the monster in front of me was.

"What are you looking at?" Rory asked. Amy and her mum were standing off to the side arguing about what she's allowed to do. Amy was saying that it was perfectly fine to hide under tables if you can fit and to chase a boy around with scissors if he needed a haircut. Tabetha had then brought up her psychiatrist. They all still believed that she had abandonment issues, and they were trying to solve them, therapist after therapist, but they simply couldn't have predicted that the Doctor really had appeared at her house one night to ruin the rest of her life.

Of course! The Doctor! "I've got it!" I said, apparently to Rory, since he was still standing beside me.

"Got what?" he tried to follow me as I paced for a second.

"The Doctor encountered these things. They sent him back to 1969." It had been funny, reading about it in one of the Churches history books. They had documented every move the Doctor had ever made, and then I'd stolen the book for light reading one night. But it had been funny because I had met the Doctor in 1969. Sure, he wasn't in America, it was a different regeneration, and he wasn't trying to kill me, but I always thought afterwards that there must have been some coincidence in that.

Still, the tenth Doctor hadn't come to 1969 by his TARDIS or any kind of Vortex Manipulator. The book had explained it all. They were called Angels. Stone statues that often looked like the human version of an angel. They would send you back in time and then feed off of the future energy you could have had. I thought that it was quite genius really, how they went about their business, but it wasn't exactly something anyone would fancy happening at a wedding. Even if you did hate weddings.

Amy had finally escaped from her mum. "The Doctor? What are you talking about?"

I pointed at the angel. "Do you see them statues?" she nodded. "If you blink, they'll probably appear closer. They can only move when you can't see them."

Amy quirked an eyebrow. "That sounds stupid."

"But it's true!" I defended.

Amy looked at me, examining my face. She then nodded. "Okay. So what's so bad about them?" I explained what they do and in return got confused glances.

I sighed. "It's okay, we just need to keep them away from your party guest or we'll have another incident like what had happened with the best man."

"How do you keep them away? They're just standing there." Rory noted.

"well, none of us have looked away have we?" I asked. I looked at the two to be sure that they somehow had my attention. "Let's go further into the garden, away from the wedding." I didn't know how to get rid of angels, but at least we could keep them away from everyone else.

"Okay." They both said. We ran through their arms and then picked up the speed until we were far enough out that all we could hear was the music playing with no one dancing.

"They moved." Rory looked shocked as he turned back to see that they were following us.

"She did say they would. Stupidhead." Amy replied. She turned to me. "Mels, what do we do?"

I shrugged. "How should I know? Just keep staring until they go away. That's sounds good enough."

"Why did you want to lure them here if you don't know what to do?" Rory questioned.

I sighed. "Because we're younger than most of the people here. We've got more of a future than them, so that makes us perfect bait." I guess, in a sense, we would have been 'bigger meals" than the old farts at the wedding.

"well… wait a second." Rory and I looked over to Amy as she formulated an idea. "You said that they won't move if you stare at them." She took a chance to glance at me and Rory, we both were looking at her, and quickly looked back to the Angels in a panic. "So why don't we just make them look at themselves?" She smiled, proud of herself. "problem solved."

I was the first to break eye contact with the statues. "Amy you're a genius!" I jumped over to her and hugged her excited and confused. I wasn't the touchy type, but Amy's brilliant reminder called for it. How could I have not remembered that? It had been how Sally Sparrow had tricked them in the book.

"One thing," Rory intruded. "How are we to do it?"

I moved away from Amy quickly and grinned. "Oh, that'll be easy." I grabbed at Amy's arm and pulled Rory closer to me by the sleeve. Then we walked right between the two angels. I looked between my two friends. "Now you've got to listen, when I tell you what to do, you have to do it that instant." I warily watched the two statues that Amy and Rory were keeping an eye on. Amy nodded and Rory said "Okay…"

"Okay," I repeated, hoping really hard that it would work. If not, we'd all be doomed and our futures would be even more messed up. The angels sensed that I was sure, that was why they were still hangin' around, in the hopes of feeding off of _our_ wacky future energy. "Ready?" I asked. I didn't really wait for a reply though. "BLINK!" I shouted. We hopefully all three closed our eyes. I quickly opened mine back up to investigate. Amy had done the same and was looking at the statues with a smile on her face. "So, they can't do anything now?" She asked.

"yeah." I agreed. The two statues had fallen right into our trap and had turned towards us, causing them to stare into each others eyes. Rory still stood between them, covering his head, waiting for the attack. "You can open your eyes now Rory!" I laughed. He did and then speedily moved away from the ladies.

"Alien statues…" he mused. "Good, that'll be something nice to put on my resume when I'm twenty."

Amy lifted a delicate eyebrow in his direction as Mrs. Williams came running over. "Kids what happened?" she asked.

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><p><em>Some things about series 5 still confuse me. One of them is that in the Big Bang, by causing the Big Bang 2, the Doctor had reset the Universe, so that means that pretty much everything that happened in series 5 never happened...right? But it happens for River because she's traveling backwards… or does it? I just don't know if that stuff happens to her. I mean, it's got to right? But maybe it doesn't anymore? MOFFAT!<em>

_Anyway, if we go by the logic that series 5 mostly never happens, then Amy never runs into the Angels with the Doctor...I think._

_So yeah... _


	27. Chapter 27: Grow Up

_Ahhh! I still never thought that this "series" (I guess that's what I should call it) would get so long! But I want to thank all of you for sticking with it because I most definitely do not upload with a schedule, although I should. I don't know how long this will all be, but I hope you will continue to enjoy it as much as I do! Also, it was mentioned that Mels gave away too much knowledge in the last chapter, and I do agree. Maybe in the future Amy and Rory remember back on it and think "it was so obvious after that that she knew something..." I don't know. Not sure if I addressed the situation right in this chapter, but please enjoy!_

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><p>"<em>Tick-tock goes the clock goes the clock…" The song played over and over in my head as the space man chased after me. I ran through the hallways of Greystark Hall, petrified. I was old enough now to know that it wasn't really a space man, just an astronaut suit from the 1960's, but that didn't mean it was any less terrifying. It was by no means a fast walker, but it was always a few feet away from me, even if I ran, it was there. The closer it came, the louder the song in my head grew.<em>

"_Tick tock goes the clock, and all the years they fly". I turned a corner and breathed heavily. It seemed as if I had lost the suit, but the music now was really loud, almost unbearable. It continued on with its creepy words, and started to give me a splitting headache. "Tick-tock, and all too soon," I held my fingers to my temples, trying to suppress the pain, as a figure stood in front of me. He looked from the spaceman who had caught up to me again and was slowly getting closer, to me with a tear in his eye. Suddenly my mum appeared beside him. She reached for his arm to pull him out of the way of the space suit. My head hurt too much to fight it, it reached for me as the last notes of the songs verse rang through my head, and the figure sang along with it "you and I must die,"_

_I tried pulling away from the astronaut suit then, I wanted to chase after the figure. To yell at him, it was his entire fault. He MADE this happen, he was the reason I wasn't normal, why no one loved me, why I was a weapon! I was supposed to kill him, and he was just walking away! The suit wouldn't let me go, it wanted to eat me, and no matter how much I flailed, I wasn't giving much of a struggle. "No! Stop! Please!" I cried, it wouldn't listen, but I wouldn't stop. "Someone help me! Get away from me! Get away!" The monster started to shake me as I continued to try to fight. The creepy childs lullaby had stopped playing in my head and was replaced by the sound of my name being said over and over. I tried to open my eyes and saw her again…_

"Mels…Mels!"

The first thing I saw was Amy's face about six inches away from mine. "What are you doing?" I asked, pushing her away. Her hands had been on either side of my arms, she'd been the one shaking me. She crossed her arms and started to pout, as if she had expected a "thank you for waking me up in the god awful hours of the morning" from me or something. "You were moving about a lot. I figured…you were having a nightmare."

She stayed sitting where she was, arms still crossed, but I had to look away. At fifteen, she looked different than before. She was beginning to lose the baby fat in her cheeks that some boys had teased her for in primary school, and her hair was becoming longer. Boys were beginning to notice her as more than just a target to make fun of, and no one could deny that she was the extremely pretty ginger in town. She was starting to look more and more like the Amy Pond who would one day give up her daughter to stay with the Doctor forever. Often that didn't bother me, I'd known that she'd one day do that since before I could remember, but her appearance that night seemed too much to take in after the nightmare I'd had. "Yeah. I was." I finally let out. Amy started to open her mouth to ask about it, but I wouldn't let her. "And I don't wanna talk about it!" I pulled the blanket up over me as a sign that I was not interested in a conversation pursuing my inner psyche at the moment.

I heard Amy sigh dramatically as she crawled back onto her bed. We both stayed quiet for what seemed like the entire night. I had been convinced that she had fallen back asleep when she spoke up again. "Mels?"

I tried not to sound annoyed when I answered; I'd already told her I didn't want to talk about it though. "Yeah?"

She took a deep breath to prepare herself, and then asked. "If you don't want to talk about your nightmares, would you tell me how you knew so much about those aliens?"

"Aliens?" I raised an eyebrow in confusion. I knew a lot about aliens, but what aliens was Amy talking about

"Yeah." I could see her silhouette as she sat up in her bed to view me better. "The ones at the wedding. The statues."

"Oh," it occurred to me that maybe I hadn't handled the statues as best as I should have at the wedding. What had I said? How could I get out of it? I should have guarded the information I had freely given away more closely. "I just…read it somewhere." I tried.

"Sounds like a funny book to me." She said. I could hear the doubt in her voice. What kind of book could you find in Leadworth that would tell you about deadly statues that only move when you can't see them, and that send a person back in time? When put that way, it did sound very crazy.

"Came in sort of handy though." I joked. I didn't want to elaborate on what book it was from, that would only get me in more trouble. I was momentarily relieved to hear her laugh though. Pretty soon, we were laughing together, the angels and nightmares almost forgotten. Eventually we stopped and entered into another bout of silence. I wasn't fooled this time into believing that she'd fallen asleep.

"Rory said that you said that you knew about them, because you said the Doctor had fought them before." Even though it was dark, I could almost see a glimmer of hope in her eyes, even now it seemed like she wanted to believe that someone besides herself had seen him too. It made me sick.

"I don't see why he wouldn't have." I started. I hated to say what I said next, I didn't agree with it at all, but with Amy, I could lie about what I believed in, at times, it was even too easy. I didn't want to disappoint her with what I really thought, so I always told her what she wanted to hear. "Actually, I'm sure he has." I started. "He's the greatest hero in all of space and time ain't he? If we've run into them, then there's no doubt he has too! Probably whooped their bums ten times faster at that!"

Amy sighed and threw something across the room. It might have been one of the Doctor/Amy dolls. "I guess…if he was ever real." She flopped back down on her pillow.

"What…what do you mean?" She'd never said anything like that before. Years and years with therapist and none of them had gotten through, what made this moment any different? It didn't make sense, what she'd said, at all.

"It's time we grow up Mels!" her voice raised a pitch. "You've always known that the Raggedy Doctor isn't real, you've only acted so that I wouldn't be angry."

I clenched my fist and sat up. I hated when people assumed things about me. "That's not true." I said.

She shook her head on the pillow. "Yeah it is. You always played the bad guy because you never really believed. And poor Rory got in trouble for stealing his dad's business clothes."

"No!" I growled. "I always play the bad guy because I _am_ the bad guy!" my nails started to dig into my palms, I tried to calm down. Amy wouldn't respond, couldn't deny that I actually wasn't a good person. "And since when do you care if Rory gets in trouble?" I accused. She'd always told him to stop being a pansy before, whenever he'd complained about getting in trouble with his dad.

"I don't!" she denied. Then she took another deep breath. "I don't know. Things are… different now."

"Because you both like each other." I stated. The mood had seemed to sizzle out.

"No…" she started "I mean, he doesn't… I'm not his type."

I pulled my knees closer to me. "His type? Rory's never liked any girls. How can he have a type?"

"Exactly, Mels." She said. She pulled the covers up over her head, the same move I'd pulled earlier. "You know what? I'm done talking about stupid things like boys, and imaginary doctors. Let's just forget it and go back to sleep."

I swallowed down hard and looked around the dark room filled with old toys and drawings of the Time Lord I was born to hate. I didn't want to go back to sleep, especially not on the uncomfortable air mattress, and especially not with the nightmares looming over my head. I'd rather stay up and have another argument. "Fine," I said. "But look, I know that he never came back, and I know that it all seemed like a strange dream. But Rory remembers that shed being torn to bits the day after the doctor came, and you know as well as we all do that no breeze could have done that. We just faced alien statues, and I've got a pirate for a mum," I thought that reference would at least cheer her up a bit, it didn't seem to work though. "Shouldn't that be proof enough? Who knows if he's actually as bloody wonderful as you believe. Maybe he's the evilest man alive, but I _do_ believe he's real, and so do you."

"That's not proof at all!" she argued. "Just made up stories by three kids who wanted to get away from boring old Leadworth!"

"I think it's proof enough." I countered. I didn't know why I was even fighting on the Doctors side, it just didn't seem right for Amy to be like this. If she hated him as much as I did, she'd never meet him again and I would never exist. That was a logical explanation for it, but there was something else to it, something deeper that I couldn't figure out…

"Well it's not." She rolled over on her side, signaling that she was done talking to me.

It was aggravating sometimes, dealing with her. She was about as stubborn as anyone could get. She hadn't listened to a word I'd said, and I actually had wanted her to. "Fine." I huffed.

"Fine." She agreed.

"I guess I'm gonna go to bed now." I laid back down, but wouldn't dare close my eyes.

"Okay." She didn't sound as mad anymore.

"Good." I glared.

"Oh, and Mels?"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"If you tell anyone about what I said about Rory, I'll draw flowers and hearts all over your face while you're sleeping."

I scoffed. "Grow up, Amy. I won't tell."

"I am grown up." She argued. "Mum wrote the list on dad's forehead once for forgetting milk at the market. So I can draw on you if I have to."

"Alright, alright, I get it." I sighed.

"Good. Goodnight Mels." She said.

"Yeah." I yawned. Staying awake all night wasn't going to be easy. "Goodnight."

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><p><em>Just a side note. I still find it way too funny that Amy thought that Rory was gay. It was one of my favorite parts of LKH! <em>


	28. Chapter 28: Review

_I don't know how long it's been since I last updated, but I feel as if it'd been a while. But finally, here it is! Writers block has had it's grip on me like no other due to the extreme summer heat, but I finally pulled through! Now I also know more about the following chapters, so the next chapter shouldn't take so long to update! Thanks to EVERYONE for sticking with me! You all are just the embodiment of amazing. :D_

_disclaimer: Steven Moffat probably would never let me have the rights to Doctor who, so sadly I can't own it. _

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><p>The office room had turned into a gym before I entered through the door. That was the kind of technology that the Church had, through perception filters they were able to fabricate gym floors and mats for extra padding. Sometimes, if something was hit, or broken, it'd turn back into a room with desks and chairs placed around. If I remembered right, the room even had a chalkboard which I often drew on when I was stuck here for hours.<p>

Madame Kovarian appeared behind me, and asked if I was ready. I sighed, already hesitant. I really had grown to resent the church. Everything they did was supposed to make me geared towards killing one man who was supposedly super evil, but never seemed to have any signs of said wickedness. I still felt the hatred inside whenever I thought of him, but I was beginning to wonder where it came from. Was I really going to think this about some man based on what a cranky old woman with an eye patch told me? I knew some of the reasons why I disliked him, for one what he did to Amy, and then also what my mum later did for him… but was that really enough to kill him for? Perhaps shoot him in the foot so he'll dance around like a clumsy giraffe, but he didn't seem to be so bad.

Maybe I was only thinking these things though because I had woken up, out of my bed, in those old, empty, Church hallways. Somehow, Kovarian had zapped me here in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. And by now, it was no secret to anyone that I didn't like to be interrupted from my slumber. My sudden thoughts in favor of the Doctor were probably just my way of getting back at Madame Kovarian without having to pay the consequences. She might try to control my life, but she couldn't read my mind.

"Ready for what?" I asked with no interest at all. It's been a long time since I'd seen her. I'd honestly thought I'd gotten away, but they always seemed to come for me. I walked into the "gym" a bit more, trying to step away from Madame Kovarian as much as possible and saw someone… or _something_ that hadn't been there before.

This time though, I thought I knew what it was. I had seen one in my room once, and although I would forget the moment I looked away, I had stared at it until I'd gotten a spot on description of it in my journal. I think I had drawn a picture too, but the memory of that was a bit fuzzy. What needed to be remembered most when encountering these suit wearing monsters was that they could make you feel a bit of nausea. Whenever I felt a bit sick like that, I assumed that it was due to the monsters that were hard to remember.

"Training." Madame Kovarian said. For a brief moment I hoped that I'd get to learn about the _history_ of the Time Lords, now that would have been interesting! Judging by the appearance of the office room though, I would be practicing the physical stuff though. At least learning how to pin a Time Lord helped against annoying boys, and even teachers, at school. You could always find some perks somewhere.

"But why?" I asked. "_You_ said that I was done training until you needed me to fulfill my destiny." It had been at least a year, but I hadn't heard from her since. I'd thought I'd gotten away for a bit. "_You_ said that I was ready."

Madame Kovarian actually rolled her eyes at me, something she hardly ever did on the account that it made her look less professional. "Of course you're ready, child."

"I'm no child anymore." I crossed my arms.

She glared at me, which really was just her normal face, but didn't press the subject. "Of course, you're very capable at sixteen."

"And a half," I added. It honestly didn't matter, but I wanted her to know I wasn't as scared of her. Smarting off seemed to be subtle enough.

"Yes." She sighed. "Now, we believe that the Doctor may show up any day. Amy appears to be at the correct stage in growth."

I crossed my arms again at that. "She's going to be the same bloody height for the rest of time. All you know about this man's first appearance in her life is that she's about as tall as she is now?"

Madame Kovarian pursed her lips, a sign that I should have backed off. "The Doctor is not the easiest to track." It should have been harder for her to admit that. Still I didn't think over what she'd admitted for too long.

"How hard is it to track the TARDIS though the Time Vortex? All you have to do is…" I stopped there, realizing that I didn't want her to know I'd taken one of her vortex manipulators once. I'd been bored and it was too easy to slip off her wrist. I hadn't found it again until a few months ago. I had started experimenting with it, finding how it connected to the vortex, how it worked. I'd opened it up once and thrown an object inside to see if I could track it, and after a little bit of tinkering, I'd successfully figured out a way to make it work. "Well, can't you just use a manipulator and just zap into the TARDIS?" It felt like that was a horrible end to what could have been a brilliant sentence. I'd lost the desire to argue with Kovarian after that.

She looked at me suspiciously, but shook her head. "Melody, you will not go to the Doctor. He will come to you." She had that look in her eye that still, even years later, bugged me. It was the look she gave when she was under the impression that I was the greatest super weapon ever created. I was his best friends daughter, so of course he'd come running if he knew I was here. Eventually, he would find out, and that would be when my time would come to end him. "Today is not necessarily training, so much as it's a review."

Suddenly there were two monsters in front of me, both holding two different boxes. One box held different hand guns of different caliber, and the other held knives of varying lengths and width. I always leaned towards the guns. I sort of liked how big and threatening they sounded, though I got the feeling that this time would be like the other times where they trained me to fight with a gun first, and if that failed, to revert to the knives. Still, after all these years, it was hard to swallow how much I wouldn't remember once I left the place.

"If you do poorly," Kovarian continued. "Then we will continue to train until you are the super weapon you were born to be."

I rolled my eyes and picked which guns and knives I liked. "_Me?_" I started. "Do poorly at anything? What bloody planet are you from?"

She only smirked as a response and then went on to give me my instructions. I had to fight off the monsters, which was a bit hard since once I turned away I would forget what I was doing. Apparently they were like rabbits in the fact that they overpopulated and Madame Kovarian had no qualms about one or two being killed off. After all, it was only to benefit the "entire universe" in the long run. I made it through the review barely breaking a sweat, and then asked just as quickly if I could go back to the Ponds to catch the few hours that I'd missed. She didn't seem too pleased with my question, but then again she never was, so I barely cared. At least I wouldn't have to see her face again for quite a while.


	29. Chapter 29: Mels the Matchmaker

_Hello everyone! Just a warning that this chapter may be really cheesy and I'm sorry if you do not like it. I probably went overboard with the cute... but at the same time I feel like I could have done a lot more. So I guess that could be good or bad news depending on who you are. I think I really liked writing this chapter just because of how much I like Amy and Rory together. haha Thanks to everyone who has commented and stuck with me through this story. Mels and the group keeps getting older but there are still enough stories to come! :D_

_Doctor Who and the characters used belong to the BBC and to Steven freakin' moffat. _

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><p>Rory tried to step away awkwardly as Amy pushed Mels towards the door. In this case, both his attempt to run and Mels attempt to stay, didn't seem to work. "Out!" Amy ordered while reaching for a better grip of his striped shirt.<p>

"Hey!" Mels looked indignant. "I just got you two…"

"Out Mels!" Amy pushed her further to the doorway, and then shut it quickly before she could retaliate.

A loud sigh could be heard from the other side of the door. Rory looked to Amy cautiously as she placed her free hand onto her hip. "Fine!" their other friend exclaimed. "I'll be going home then, since none of my friends love me anymore!"

"She's such a drama queen." Amy jerked Rory away from the door and over to the bed. "Sit down." He hadn't had much choice in the matter considering she'd pushed him into the sitting position. She sat down next to him. "We're going to talk, Rory."

Rory nodded, but gave no effort in starting the most likely painful conversation. They both sat there in silence for a bit, stealing glances at each other, finding things to say and then rejecting their thought out words. Amy was getting irritated with their lack of communication, but neither teen knew exactly what to say to fix the situation. Rory wished Mels had never had said that. He wished that Amy would never have to know so she could continue to date whichever boy she liked and could tell him endlessly about her problems, with boys or any other topic, without it being awkward. He wished that Amy hadn't made him come back to "talk", and he wished that he had something to do so he that he'd have an excuse to why he couldn't stay and talk to his best friend.

"So…" Amy started, breaking the silence. Rory tried not to look at her. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"You thought I was gay?" he countered. He didn't want to admit the reasons why he'd never told her how he felt, not yet. Plus, what Amy had assumed sort of hurt. Did he really hide his feelings that well, or was she really just so oblivious?

"Well you never told me you liked anyone." Amy was defensive. "I just thought… maybe you were scared to tell us that you weren't really into girls." She laughed at how ridiculous it sounded now that she knew the truth.

Rory smiled a long with her. He decided at that moment that it probably was best to just be honest. "Listen, I know the kind of…"

"Kind of what?" Amy interrupted him, midsentence. She could be so impatient.

"The sorts of boys you go for. They're not me."

Amy was laughing again only this time Rory didn't know why. What he'd said didn't seem that funny to him… unless he'd missed the punch line or something. "Of course they're not Rory!" she grinned at him. "Has it crossed your little mind that no one is?"

Rory looked down at his fingers, he could feel her staring at him now. "That's not what I meant."

She leaned towards him like she was going to tell him a secret. "I know." She teased. "Couldn't help myself." He couldn't help but smile at her again. She really knew how to lighten anyone's mood.

They fell into silence again. Rory wondered what Amy was thinking and was sure that at one point she'd probably wondered what he was wondering too. He knew that she didn't like this, not talking. She was the type of person who wanted to get the complicated things out of the way so that she could continue having fun. Rory was being bloody horrible at helping to fix it. Amy pulled her legs up onto the bed tucked them under her thighs. "So, what do you wanna do Rory?" she asked. It was obvious it wasn't one of those questions referring to when they were bored and didn't know what to do.

Rory looked over at Amy who was waiting expectantly for an answer. What was he supposed to say? He shook his head in response, and flopped down on his back to stare up at the ceiling. There were still glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, which they'd both put up together when they were little, right around the time that her shed in the garden had been blown down. Amy, Amelia then, had been so excited that her mother had complied to her pleas to get the stars, that she almost couldn't contain herself. It was actually one of Rory's earliest memories of the times when he'd realized he liked to be around her. "Lets just forget this ever happened." He suggested truthfully. "Mels didn't mean what you thought. We can just go back to normal."

Amy laid down on the bed too, turning onto her side to look him directly in the eyes. Rory couldn't look away, the way that she was looking at him made it clear that he wasn't allowed to. He was scared that she was angry with him until she smirked. "Did you forget that I said you're my favorite guy?"

He shook his head and finally glanced away from her, back to the ceiling. "No, I think it'll be imprinted in my mind for at least two thousand years, mostly because right after that you said I was gay." He was the one smirking now. In way, it was sort of funny that she'd thought that.

"Two thousand?" She eyed him curiously.

Rory shrugged. "It's just a number I guess." For a second it felt like more than that though. Amy nodded and continued to stare at him staring at the stars.

"Why don't we give it a shot?" she suggested.

If Rory had had a drink at that moment, he would have spit it out in shock. He turned his head to see her better and couldn't believe how serious she looked. "What?" he didn't know if he could say anything else.

Amy giggled "you heard me stupidhead." She reached over to grab his hand. She'd done it before, of course they'd held hands. They were best friends, but this time it meant something different to them. "Now that you're not gay I feel I stand a chance. Maybe you're the one Mels has been saying is right in front of my 'bloody' face."

Rory had a hard time finding his voice. "ahhh… really?"

"yeah why not?" They were both grinning.

Rory started to say that he hadn't expected _this_ when he'd come to Amy's today, but before he could open his mouth to reply, a loud bang came from the door accompanied with Mels' shouting "OH JUST KISS ALREADY!"

Amy opened the door almost the moment I'd shouted, but I hadn't expected her to be at the door so quickly, so tumbled in as she pulled it open. I picked myself up off the floor and then grinned over to Rory. "You're welcome, by the way." I said.

"Mels, I told you to get out of here." Amy scolded. I rolled my eyes, she didn't seem to upset that I'd stayed.

"yeah, and then you said you were going home." Rory added. The moment I looked over to him he blushed like he'd probably been doing the whole time. I ran over to the bed and jumped on, making sure to sit super close to him to make him a bit uncomfortable. Then I did something that was rare from any of us, but especially me in our group, I wrapped my arms him. "Rory, Rory, Rory! You've got to remember something about Mels Zucker: she lies! Always have an always will." We all laughed as I finally let go of Rory and tried to contain my excitement that my parents were finally, _finally_ together. I really hadn't thought it would have been that easy.

Rory jumped up from the bed then and looked wide eyed to Amy. "I really do need to leave though, I've got…"

"Yeah go on!" Amy waved him away, but was grinning from ear to ear. He sent a cautious smile back, and then walked out the door with a final wave to us both before he was gone.

Amy picked up the cardboard TARDIS I'd thrown to the end of the bed, which had proceeded to fall to the floor. She spun it up in the air a few times before putting it in her pile of old "fairy tale" things she'd always owned. She walked to her chair and sat down. After a few minutes of me braiding bits and pieces of my hair and Amy smiling to herself, she sat up and looked quizzically at me. "Do you think Rory seems too old to be just seventeen?"

I screwed up my nose, not really understanding the question. "No, not really. I mean, he can be a bit of a downer when we're trying to have fun but…" I stopped, not sure how I would even finish that. We both knew that the only time Rory was a downer was when we were about to get in trouble. He was a nice balance between us two.

Amy was deep in thought. "I think he is." She concluded. "When we were talking, there was something in his eyes… like he was expecting that I'd rather be with someone else even though he's always there for me for _years._ Of course I like him I just didn't know…" she looked like she was remembering something and I wondered what it was. Sometimes Rory and Amy both got in that kind of mood. It was like there was another world they'd lived in that came back in bits and pieces. It sounded crazy, but not too crazy when you were me. Once I'd thought of it though, there must have been something that made them like that. I'd most definitely heard Madame Kovarian refer to Rory as the "Last Centurian" but I'd never understood what it had meant. Did it have something to deal with what Amy was thinking? In a way it could make sense.

"It's one of the things that's sort of beautiful about him." Amy said. "He's only seventeen, but it's like he's two amazing people in one." She was thinking hard again… or maybe remembering. "He doesn't just like me, Mels." She stated. You could see her disbelief, that she couldn't tell how obvious he was before.

I laughed. "Of course not!" I decided to sort of hint at my idea, maybe they had another life in a different universe and they saw bits and pieces of it every once and a while… "I think he loved you since you two first met." Amy laughed along with me but denied it. "That's not true!"

I shrugged. "Believe what you will Amelia Pond, but I think you two e been on the same path for a long time now."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Oh really? Then who's on your "path" Melody?"

I smirked. "Don't know. My future's not as mapped out as yours appears to be." And it felt sort of true. The only thing I knew that I was destined to do was kill the Doctor. Everything else was all in the gray. As the days went by I kept thinking that I might even try to change that fate. Why did _I_ have to kill the doctor? Anyone could really, it seemed easy enough.

Amy shook her head smiling. "Sometimes you don't make any sense Mels."

I laughed but shrugged. "Just keepin' it interesting, I guess."


	30. Chapter 30: Guns and Bravery

_Hello everyone. This next chapter is kind of a two part deal fore it is so long.  
><em>_onto better news though... the trailer didn't help my withdrawal from this amazing show! There were daleks and dinos on spaceships and the master was mentioned and we had a glimpse at River... it was all just so exciting! I cannot wait until the new season (by the way, does anyone know when the new season starts?). If you somehow haven't seen the trailer yet, just go on youtube because I'm sure it's not hard to find. :P_

_anyway, I don't own Doctor Who because I am not Steven Moffat or any of the other BBC people._

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><p>Amy sat on the bench staring down at her long legs. Dating Rory had turned out to be more awkward than she had thought. As Rory went to fetch the two some ice cream, Amy wondered why it wasn't as easy as she had pictured it to be in her head. Shouldn't it be perfectly swell to just move from best friends to "more than"? The more Amy thought about it, the more she realized that the only positives she could think of at the moment about dating Rory Williams was that she wasn't taller than him. She'd dated a few boys who'd been shorter than her and it was very uncomfortable, especially when she had wanted to wear heels.<p>

Sure there were other things about Rory that Amy liked, but they didn't outshine how strange she felt about the whole thing the entire day. This was Rory, the boy she'd confided her "Raggedy Doctor" secrets to when she was a loony little girl. The boy she'd casually conversed with about her recent crushes. Amy had asked for dating advice from him for Pete's sake! Now, after all of that, it almost seemed as if Rory felt like he had to compete with all the other boys which she had only "sort of" fancied. By doing that though, he was no longer Rory, and it was just making their day turn out to be horrible.

The longer she sat at the bench the more impatient she became. Rory was taking way too long with her ice cream cone! She heard a loud bang coming from the trees over the field across from her. It didn't take any more time for her curiosity to get the best of her. Plus, there was only one person she knew who would be gutsy enough to bring a gun to the Leadworth Community Park. Surely Mels was up to something more interesting than sitting on a bench _talking._

Amy maneuvered her way past the chain which was supposed to keep people out, and into the small woods. She followed the deer paths towards the only prominent sound that didn't chirp annoyingly at her. It took a moment or two, but eventually she found Mels with her hands shielding her eyes as she looked above at the treetops. There was a gun in her right hand.

"What're you doing?" Amy smirked at her friend. Honestly Amy was done being surprised by the different kinds of weapons the girl seemed to get her hands on.

Mels wouldn't look away from the sky. She spotted her target, whatever it was, and then skillfully aimed the gun. Within a few seconds the girl had pulled the trigger, and a bird cry could be heard as the bullet hit its target. Amy looked at Mels appalled. Having a gun on possession wasn't shocking, but she didn't think Mels would actually shoot anything. Was it legal ?

"Where's Roooorrry?" Mels asked. It had sounded to Amy as if Mels was mocking her. She crossed her arms stubbornly.

"He went to get some ice cream. Sorry we didn't know you were here. Do you want Rory to get you one too?" She looked back out of the woods, ready to shout out to Rory for another cone.

Mels shook her head, and continued to look for more innocent birds to fire at. "You two on a date?"

Amy felt the slightest hesitation before she replied. It still felt odd to her, saying that they were together, that "a date" was something they were supposed to do. She nodded as an answer.

Mels raised an eyebrow and took her gaze away from the trees. "Then what's wrong?" She looked onto Amy with genuine worry. "You've got Mr. Perfect after all, right?"

Amy sighed and wondered why Mels seemed to care so much. She had never showed interest in any of her other boyfriends. Maybe it was just that Rory was both their friend, and if something bad happened between them, it wouldn't just affect one of them this time. "Well," she tried, "he's acting…like someone else."

"What do you mean?" Mels put her gun down on the ground next to her bag, which s he'd recently started carrying everywhere. Then she wiped some dry leaves and dust off of a log sitting behind her. The area looked a bit cozy, like Mels had been in this part of the woods plenty of times before. There were paper targets placed on tree trunks everywhere and signs of dead critters all around. In fact, a distinct rotting smell was starting to become apparent from a nearby tree. Mels sat down on the log, obviously undisturbed by the smell, and motioned for Amy to join her.

Amy sat on the log, pulling her legs to her chest as Mels looked over to her, expectant of an answer. It's like he's trying to be the boyfriend of boyfriends past!"

She knew the moment she had said it that it hadn't come out right. Sure Mels would probably understand, but the phrase seemed ridiculous. Mels Chuckled. "You've quite a way with words, mate."

Amy lightly nudged her in the arm, but couldn't think of a better way of explaining it. Rory just didn't seem so much like himself any longer. "You know what I mean." She finally said. "Like, do you remember Jimmy?"

"I wasn't really his number one fan." Mels admitted.

Amy shook her head smiling. "Well, no one really was. But I remember boasting to Rory about how "brave" Jimmy was, and now today Rory and I were talking about this costume party Meredith Porter is having, and he says he might dress up as a centurion. I told him, he's not brave enough, but suddenly he thinks otherwise.

Mels grinned back at Amy. "Rory Williams. The boy who won't kill a spider 'cause it's not doin' any wrong says that?

Amy smiled at her remark. "Well yeah. Him.

"Rory's plenty brave." Mels concluded. "Jimmy was a wimp. Nothing compared to our _Roranicus_!" She stood up and mimed a dinosaur stomping at the ground.

Amy laughed. "Okay," she started. "But what about when…"

"Honestly Amy," Mels interrupted. She bent down to reach her gun and grabbed her bag too. "Any change you think Rory has done is probably just to impress you. He's bloody mad about you, after all. Just tell him to be himself, and that he's already wowed you with his Rory-ness. Then he'll probably turn back to normal.

Amy quirked an eyebrow. "Probably?"

"Yup." Mels had lost interest in their conversation and was once again examining the stupid gun.

At this point, Amy could take a hint. It was obvious that Mels either wanted her to stay quiet, or leave, while she played with her new deadly toy. But Amy didn't want to go, not yet. "So what are you doing?" she asked for the second time.

Mels sighed, but still waited patiently to fire the gun. "Practice." She stated.

"Practice for what? Murder?" Amy rolled her eyes.

Mels sent a mischievous grin Amy's way. "Maybe."

Her friend chuckled but wondered if she should stop her. There was no doubt that people in the park had heard the gun shots. Even if Mels didn't care to get in trouble, Amy certainly never wanted her to be. "Don't say that Mels. They've probably got cameras all over you with the kind of trouble you get into.

Mels shrugged as Amy stood up and dusted off her pants. "Well it ain't my fault." She glanced over at Amy again and threw her bag over to her. "Would you mind helping me out?"

Amy looked warily at her. Helping probably wasn't the best idea. "With what?"

Mels was motioning to the bag. "Get an apple rom there and put it on your head. IF I don't want to hurt you… my aim should get better."

Amy's eyes narrowed. She did not like that idea at al. How stupid could Mels be? She threw the bag back to Mels, who expertly caught it, and then the redhead crossed her arms. "Or I've got something! Give me the gun, and let's see how you like being a guinea pig!" she snapped.

Mels grew quiet. She couldn't stop staring at Amy. It wasn't as if she were being threatened, Amy knew how to deal with those glares, it was what most of Mels looks entitled, but it was almost as if the other teen had been frozen in a state of shock. Amy wouldn't take it back though, of course she had meant what she'd said, but the look in Mels' eyes made her wonder if the phrase had meant something different to her. Amy was about to ask if anything was wrong when Mels snapped out of it.

"Alright." She shrugged. "Not like I'm used to it or anything." She tossed Amy the gun while Amy continued to wonder what had just happened inside her best friend's freaky brain. Mels reached for a Granny Smith, her least favorite of all the apples, from the bag, and proceeded to place it atop her head. She walked a distance away and then turned to face Amy. "Hit me with your best shot!" She shouted.

Her friends words had made her frustrated. It occurred to Amy that the only reason Mels would trust Amy with a gun was because she _knew, _or thought she knew, that Amy wouldn't be able to get the target. But she was Amelia Pond, and fairytale or not, she could do anything if it meant proving someone wrong. She aimed for the fruit on top of Mels head.

She was about to pull the trigger too, until Mels sighed with exaggeration. Amy followed her gaze to see the girl looking at nothing towards the entrance of the woods. "Uh-oh." She grabbed the apple off of her head and hurried towards Amy. "Someone's coming. Quick! Gimme the gun, so you won't…"

Amy threw the gun as far from herself as she could manage. She'd learned long ago not to question Mels' keen abilities. If she heard someone coming, whether anyone else did or not, someone was coming. It was just one of the things that made her sort of mysterious to her peers. So Amy trusted her judgment full heartedly, and surely didn't want to be caught with a weapon in her hand. Especially a _deadly_ weapon. She looked up at Mels, panicking. Shouldn't they be running away? Why was Mels laughing at her instead of saying that they needed to move?

When the three men, all unarmed, came into the small clearing, they found the two girls facing each other. The red head was very cross, with her hands on her hips and a glare that could kill directed to the girl holding her side in laughter.

Between laughs Mels looked up and took a bite of the apple, grinning. "Good day, officers. Bet you didn't think you'd see me so soon, yeah?" She laughed again as they pulled out the handcuffs to arrest the two.

As they were being taken back to the police cars, Amy realized something. She and Rory needed to teach Mels a very valuable lesson about doing trouble _silently._ If Mels refused to stay out of it, she would learn to at least how to not get caught.


	31. Chapter 31: Breaking Out

_So for this, I decided to skip the part where Amy lectures Mels on how she always gets in trouble, and just cut to the fun stuff. I hope you all enjoy it! Thanks to everyone who has followed, favorited and reviewed! You all are awesome. :D_

_Doctor Who and the characters in it are not owned by me. _

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><p>"Blimey, you're being rough." Both Amy and I turned our heads to the voice who had interrupted Amy's intriguing lecture about being good and not causing mischief. I smirked at Blake Murphy. He was about to realize that interrupting Amelia Pond was not something that anyone would willingly wish to do. He looked nervously over to me, then cautiously back to Amy, avoiding eye contact.<p>

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me." She started "But who asked you?" her thick Scottish accent was more snarky than usual.

I laughed and decided to join in. It'd be loads more fun to egg the situation on, than it would to continue listening to Amy's idea of what a good person does. "Well, he's got a point, you know." I grinned. "Last I checked, you ain't my mom." I laughed at my own joke that Amy, of course, didn't quite get.

Amy ignored my comments and continued to glare at Blake. "What're you doin here anyway? You're what… seventeen?"

Blake crossed his arms and leaned against the desk he'd been at the entire time. "Just recently eighteen, thank ya very much."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Oooh, look at you all older and wiser. How do you stand it?" She sat back down on one of the beds that could hardly be called a bed. She refused to sit on the one that I had recently refurbished.

I placed my hands on my hips, still unable to hide my grin. It wasn't often I got to see Amy in a situation like this. She'd always told me not to get in trouble, although she got in just as much. Recently she hadn't been so mischievous, and even when she did find herself in some sort of dilemma she'd rather think herself out of it instead of getting caught. I sort of thought that half the fun was getting caught. "Well this sure is so much fun." I commented.

"We wouldn't be here if it weren't for _you."_ Amy noted. I shrugged.

Blake cracked a smile. "Maybe you should become a better criminal… unless you get caught on purpose to see me!"

I shook my head. "Only in your dreams, Murphy. I've got better things to do than fawn over a regular boy like you." I sat down beside Amy on the uncomfortable bed, if you could even call it that.

"Believe me," he replied. "I'm no regular bloke."

I ignored his comment and looked over to Amy who was suddenly beaming at me. I hadn't seen her smile since she'd thrown my gun to the ground earlier that day. "What?" I asked.

Amy's grin turned a bit sinister. "You've broken out of here before haven't you?"

I didn't want to know why she'd suddenly gotten a look of mischief in her eye, I just nodded in response. Of course, I could break out all the time if I really felt like it, but the only time I actually had was when Amy and Rory couldn't come to get me out. I had my stolen vortex manipulator hidden away in my pocket and had ended up somewhere is Brazil, rather than my room above Amy's house. They'd caught me a few days later, and put me back in the same old lousy cell for escaping.

"And it's just Blake here now, yeah?" Amy continued. "And he wouldn't turn you in." She said, more to herself than me.

I nodded again with a smug grin. "He knows I'd beat him up if he did."

Her grin widened as you could physically her plan coming together inside her head. "So let's forget about waiting for Rory, and let's get out of here!"

I had to admit, I liked her enthusiasm, but I couldn't really see her plan just yet. "How?" I did a quick sweep of the place, looking for anything in reach that could help our cause. I couldn't really find anything of useful value. "It'd be easier if the keys were closer to the bloody bars." I sighed.

Amy shook her head. "What else have you got?" She looked at me like she thought it would have come easier for me to break out.

"We… could go violent." I grinned. It seemed a bit exciting to knock stupid Blake unconscious, he certainly deserved it, simply for being annoying.

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" She laughed. "You know, you're a bit of a psychopath Mels."

"I'm not. I just think outside the box." I joked. But it left me wondering if maybe I was, in some aspects, it definitely did seem to be true. I stuck my hands in my pockets and suddenly felt a small metal tube that made me smirk. "Wait a second…" said, pulling the lipstick out. "What about this?"

Amy glanced at the tube and then looked back to me. "Is that the one that made all of those boys act silly in primary school?"

I opened the top of it and examined the color. "I think so. Can't quite remember if it's the tan or red one that causes hallucinations."

Amy's mouth dropped. "You think? What does the other one do?"

I shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? Mad—mum told me to save the other one for a 'special' occasion." I recapped it. "It'll work though. I don't see you suggesting anything better."

Amy sighed, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. "Fine, but if he gets hurt, it's your fault.

I shook my head and handed her the lipstick. "I ain't kissing him."

Her jaw set. "Well, neither am I. It's you're weird lipstick!" She threw it back to me.

"What are you two arguing about?" We'd suddenly caught Blake's attention. He took a step closer to the cell. I turned to stare back at Blake, faking a flirty grin. I walked over and grabbed a hold of the bars. "nothing much." I glanced back at Amy before continuing. "She doesn't think that I can break out with just this stick of lipstick." I held up the tube as a visual example.

Blake crossed his arms but came the rest of the way to the cell to get a better view. "Of course it won't." he stated. "I wouldn't be daft enough to let a girl out just because she kissed me."

"Who says I'll kiss you." I teased. He was falling too easily into my trap. "Besides, I say it'll work."

He shook his head. "And if it doesn't work?"

"Guess we'll be stuck here and you'll be able to hold it over my head forever." I started to chuckle to myself. I never did anything if I knew someone would be able to hold something over my head. I was absolutely positive the lipstick would work in some way.

"All right," he started. I grabbed his shirt and jerked him closer. The quicker I did it, the sooner I'd be able to forget about Blake's unfortunate crush one. "Sorry if I've got the wrong color, mate." I swiftly pressed my lips against his, being sure to smear at least a little bit of the stuff onto his mouth, and then moved away. I wiped my lips off as Amy and I looked over to him expectantly

He stood silently in front of us, looking sort of in a daze. Finally he glanced up. "See!" he started. "Didn't work!" Amy heaved a sigh, I held up a finger, motioning for her to wait. Chances were, the hallucinogen hadn't gotten fully into his bloodstream yet. "Although, I wouldn't mind doing that aga…"

"Get us out of here." I interrupted. "Mr. Pond already signed and paid for bail, and you can't keep us here anymore!"

Blake looked around the empty station and then back to us, confusion in his eyes. Then he nodded and pulled the key ring out of his back pocket. "Of course, my Princess, how could I forget?"

Amy started loudly laughing as Blake proceeded to unlock the cell. "Princess!" She mimicked. I grit my teeth together and forced the now unlocked jail cell door open. Blake was now kneeling and tried to reach for my hand to kiss. I pulled away with a growl. "I kill my own dragons, thank ya very much." We left him sitting there, in his unexpected medieval hallucination. I almost wished that I had use the other lipstick, even if it was specifically for the Doctor.

Amy was still giggling as we made it out to the sidewalk outside the station. In between her fits of laughter she managed to ask something that actually made sense, compared to her nonsensical babble. "How come that stuff doesn't work on you?"

I shrugged and hoped that talking about it would make her forget how funny she thought Blake had acted. "I don't know. Like I said, mum gave it to me."

Amy seemed more serious now. Her eyebrows knit together. "What kind of job is that, where it's okay to give your child lipstick with chemicals that make others hallucinate?"

I glanced over at her and didn't quite know how to respond. It was a very good question. But had Kovarian ever done anything for me that a normal parent would do for their child? Truthfully, I didn't even count her as a parent and she was hardly a guardian. I just had to tolerate her at times. "I don't really know." I said.

"What are you two doing out here?" Rory came up to us, looking concerned. He was followed by a shorter, stubbier Augustus Pond.

Amy grinned at the opportunity to pick fun at me. "Blake let us go because Mels is a princess!"

I instantly sent a glare at Rory which said _if you laugh, you'll die. _He cracked a smile, but seemed to catch the message.

"What?" Augustus looked unsettled. "but you can't just do that!"

Amy placed a hand on her father's shoulders. She'd grown taller than him within the past few years and now could use him as an armrest if she wished. "It's alright dad." She chuckled and grinned at me. "I think Mels just got a boyfriend."

I balled my fist together, but decided that hitting anyone would be stupid. It was my own fault for getting into that mess, and I guess that it wasn't often Amy could tease me about boys, so she was only seizing an opportunity. I climbed into the backseat of their car instead and avoided giving Amy a real piece of my mind. "He's NOT my boyfriend." I defended, though it didn't look like either of them took what I'd just said seriously.


	32. Chapter 32: Captain Rory

_So, it's definitely been a while since I last updated, and for that I apologize. Writers Block just got the best of me. It's also getting closer to the end so I'm trying to figure out how to neatly tie it all up. I know how it ends, just haven't finished it yet. I hope you enjoy the following chapter (s), and of course, thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, and follows this story. You guys are my heroes. :D_

_Doctor who is not something for which I own, so yep._

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><p>I stuck my feet up on the desk chair in front of me as our teacher droned on at Hitler in the 1920's. As hard as I tried to pay attention, which honestly wasn't a whole lot, I noticed that I already knew basically everything I <em>needed<em> to know about the guy. He was an angry man who wasn't accepted into art school and for that, lashed out. I couldn't be bothered with looking interested with a topic like that.

What was more entertaining though was the thought of going back in time to stop him. I knew that it could have been done, and it _should _have, so why hadn't it? Would everyone's time streams really change so much that killing the guy who had done more horrible things than good was out of the question? Even if it changed the rest of history, it would be a completely different, mad, universe that seemed more enjoyable than what boring old Leadworth had to show. And it was a tempting thing. Changing history at all sounded like fun. There could be a business made of it and everything. They could be called the "History Meddlers" or something with a more clever name. I figured that maybe after I fulfilled my "destiny" I could start it up. Mels Zucker, the Time Meddler, it certainly had a nice ring to it. Hopefully I'd get my hands on a new vortex manipulator by then too, the one I'd stolen from Kovarian had gone missing.

My time travel thoughts were broken by a folded piece of paper that was tossed over my shoulder and landed on my desk. I turned my head, taking a glance at Rory, who looked like he was trying very hard to read Mr. Carters squiggly handwriting. It seemed pretty obvious then, who the note was from.

I twisted back into my seat, in hopes that Mr. Carter wouldn't see or hear the message passing. I finally had it opened and read Rory's always surprisingly neat handwriting. I had teased him plenty of times before, saying that if his future goals were to become a doctor, then he would have to start writing almost illegibly. He never seemed to find it very funny, but it wasn't like my world would crumble from a stern look or two. AT least his fancy font helped make it easier to read the note.

_Come to the costume party at Meredith's. She invited you. Please?_

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Although dressing up and scaring the guest did sound like fun, the costume party was not something that wanted to go to. I had better things to do with my time besides walk around and _socialize._ I quickly grabbed for my pen and wrote back:

_Nope. Sorry. Got something else to do._

I didn't try to fold the paper back , instead I just held it back over my shoulder for Rory to take. It seemed as if a second had barely passed before he handed it back to me.

_Not likely._

I raised an eyebrow and glanced back at him. Now he was looking over to me, trying to appear unbothered, but it was obvious that he wanted me at the party for some unspoken reason.

_Okay. You might have caught me with nothing to do. I still won't go. What are you so worried about anyways?_

I handed it back over my shoulder before realizing the teacher standing at the front of the classroom staring at me. The rest of the class had grown quiet, everyone peeking at me and Rory…well mostly me. I crossed my arms over my chest. "What?" I shot.

Mr. Carter seemed a bit more than annoyed with my response. "I asked you, what was a signifigant factor in Hitler's rise to power?"

I stepped out of my chair and into the aisle that all the desk made. I was sure that everyone was staring at me before turning to the front of the room, facing the teacher with a smirk. Rory seemed to sink a bit in his seat, but that wasn't really my problem. I started to think about what I'd been thinking about Hitler and time travel from only a few minutes earlier.

"A significant factor in Hitler's rise to power the fact that the Doctor didn't stop him." I twisted my braids and waited patiently for Mr. Carter's reaction. The room erupted into whispers and giggles as they all started their gossip about how I still "believe" in Amy's old imaginary friend. But even now, it still helped people to like Amy more by letting them place the blame for her "crazy ideas" onto me. It felt as if I'd told the truth though. The Doctor _could_ stop Hitler whenever he wanted, he knew how to skip his way around paradoxes and fixed points in time. And did fixed points really have to be definite? I was sure there was a way around that as well. Really the only thing that I could see that was keeping the Doctor from actually stopping Hitler was his own evil hearts. Simple as that.

"Mels! Go sit in the hall until I give you the Okay to come back in!" Mr. Carter ordered. He pushed up his black framed glasses and pointed at the door. "And Rory, let me see that paper!" he said. I gathered up my books and things, rather smug with myself, and then left the class.

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><p>I wasn't allowed back in, for the rest of the class period. I had nothing better to than to wait and pick at the floor tiles until the bell finally rang. I would have just skipped it all together if my <em>father <em>wasn't in the class.

Rory walked through the door, somewhere in middle of the mob of red and white students, and stood beside me until most of the halls were generally empty. It was lunch now, and everyone was hurrying as quickly as they could to eat. We started walking down the hall, slow enough that Amy could catch up if she hadn't gotten to the cafeteria already.

"I'm nervous. That's what I'm worried about." Rory blurted out.

It took a moment for me to realize what he was talking about: the note. "Why?" I asked. "It's just another stupid party."

He start to nod. "Yeah… I mean no. It's with Amy."

"So?" I still wasn't completely getting it. "You've gone to plenty of parties with her." Rory had always been fortunate enough to have been deemed as the designated driver at times when Amy (mostly) would "party" too hard.

"Not like this." He stated.

I glanced over to him, slightly irritated. We were almost to the cafeteria now. "Oh just cut to the song. It's getting boring!" I scoffed my shoes against the tile for something to do.

He shook his head. "I still don't understand why you say that."

"Rory…"

"Okay." He held up his hands in mock surrender. "It's just…what if she kisses me? Or I embarrass myself. Or I embarrass her?"

I cracked up laughing and couldn't look at him for a second. "You two haven't kissed yet? How… adorable!

Rory didn't crack a smile, clearly not amused. It was sort of shocking that he didn't think their night would go swimmingly. The way they acted together made it seem like they'd be fine. They were Amy and Rory, Misses and Mr. Perfect. I couldn't help but see his insecurities as laughable because there was nothing bad that could happen. I mean, what really could go wrong with the two? "You don't got to worry mate." I stopped laughing so that he could see how _serious_ I was. "She's your girlfriend, but she's still the same Amy from before. So stop acting so nervous, trust me, she's noticed. Just be your obvious-Roryest self."

I felt like I had just possibly killed two birds with one stone. Hopefully, I had helped to ease Rory's nerves _and_ I'd solved Amy's "Rory's acting different" problem. All in all, I was feeling pretty accomplished. Rory seemed to take my words into consideration, and then raised an eyebrow. "Wait, obvious?"

"Yeah. _Captain_ _Obvious_." I noted.

He sighed and then nodded. " I guess you are right."

I grinned back at him. "Thanks, _Captain_ _Obvious_."

"Not about that." He sighed.

I shrugged and stepped in line for the food. "But I'm always right, Rory."


	33. Chapter 33: The Nose

_So I feel like this is starting to be more centered around Amy and Rory, and I've just got to say that for those who maybe don't like that so much, I'm sorry. It's just that all the idea's for chapters have been about Amy and Rory growing into their relationship. I think things will start speeding up a bit after this chapter though, because we're getting closer and closer to the end. (oh no!)  
><em>_Thank you so, so, so much for everyone who has favorited, story alerted, author alerted and reviewed. You guys add so much sunshine to my day. :D  
><em>_and without further ado, chapter 33!_

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><p>So far the party didn't seem to be so bad. Of course, Rory wasn't much of a party goer, he was just glad that he hadn't ruined the night for Amy yet. At least they didn't serve alcohol at this party, although that didn't change what his girlfriend was wearing, and the other boys who had also noticed. She'd always caught a lot of boys attention, but with the kissogram costume, the lingering stares were a bit unnerving.<p>

Still the night had been going pretty well. The two had both had their costumes complimented on by others, they had some tasty cakes, and the karaoke continued to amuse all who watched. Rory had never been to a costume party before, but he was beginning to think that he liked it better than other parties. There was even a swimming pool which some people had already dove in to.

The two were standing an entrance to a hallway talking with some people about the recent rendition of _Stayin Alive_ on the karaoke, when Amy slid her fingers into Rory's hand. "Come on." She looked flirtily at him. With her heels she appeared to be at his height, or taller. She tugged his arm and started to lead him away from the group of conversing people. "Let's dance." She glanced back at him, squeezing his hand with a grin. She knew Rory didn't much like dancing in front of others, but he couldn't help smiling back at her anyways.

The obvious destination was to get to the center of the dance floor. The closer they got, the fast Amy pulled Rory along, ready to dance to the upbeat hip hop songs. Rory hadn't been paying attention to where he was going; he was simply letting Amy lead the way, but suddenly just being led didn't seem to be working. He found himself lying face down on the cool tile.

He rolled over to see Amy leaning over him. Some other girl he'd never met was there too. "Bloody hell!" she exclaimed. "You alright mate?" Rory raised a confused eyebrow. Despite the pale skin and blonde hair, the girl was like Mels. They both had the same way of enunciating their words… but Mels said she wouldn't be caught dead at the party, so it couldn't have even remotely been her. Plus, this disaster wouldn't have happened if he had somehow talked her into coming.

"Oh, shut it!" Amy pushed the girl out of the way. "Yeah, what she said. Are you okay?" He stared up at her with her police woman hat a bit crooked on her head and nodded. "Yeah. I think my nose is broken."

Amy rolled her eyes. "It's not broken." She helped him stand back up. "Just a nose bleed, hopefully."

"Hopefully." Rory dead panned back at her. He wanted to point out that he was the one who was going to go to med school, but he dropped it. The girl was back then with a clot that she gave to Amy. "Thank you." Rory said to her as she quickly walked away. Amy seemed to have that effect on girls when she was around him. He took the cloth from the ginger and placed it against his nose. Now he could tell it definitely wasn't broken, no damaged cartilage.

"You know, most people try to catch themselves when their falling." Amy teased. Rory blushed as everyone surrounding them continued to watch with curiosity and concern. "um… I need some fresh air." He noted.

Amy agreed, and they weaved their way through the crowd until they were outside. She shut the do behind her and kept on going. "Let's take a walk." She smiled.

"Okay," he found that a better idea than walking back in to the party. Amy reached for his free hand as they continued down the sidewalk.

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><p>Leadworth was such a small town that you could walk anywhere in the town limits within only a few minutes or so. It didn't take long until Amy and Rory reached their old primary school and settled at the swing set. Amy sat on one of the swings, but Rory was hesitant to join her.<p>

He had tried so hard not to turn the night into a mess, and he had failed miserably. He didn't think that she would break up with him, he hadn't goofed that badly, but she might never want to be seen in public with him again; all because he couldn't watch where he was going.

Amy swayed back and forth on the old swing as Rory leaned against it, mind racing with humiliation. Honestly, it wasn't so bad, but Rory couldn't be convinced otherwise. Eventually Rory broke their bout of silence. "The next time you drag me to a _costume_ party, I'm wearing the police outfit. You can have the cape to trip over."

Amy grinned over to him. "Yeah. I'm sure you'd be dashing in this skirt." She gestured to her stockings and black skirt. They both laughed and Amy motioned for Rory to come over. He did a quick sniff to be sure that his nose hadn't started bleeding again (they had discarded the rag in someone's trash bin along the way), and knelt down so he was face to face with Amy. "I wouldn't trip on the cape." She finished with a swift kiss to his nose. She then leaned back on the swing, ordering him to grab the other swing. Rory sat down beside her.

"Now, Roman boy, I bet I can jump further than you can!" she challenged.

At that moment Rory realized that maybe Mels was right. It didn't seem like Amy was bothered by what had happened earlier at all, and worrying wouldn't get him anywhere, it especially wouldn't impress Amelia Pond. He just had to let go, and for a little while, adapt Amy's easy going "come what may" attitude. They swung higher and higher until each felt they had the momentum needed to jump far enough. Amy started the countdown with _three_, then Rory chimed in with _two_, and at _one_ they both launched themselves into the air.

With her long legs and lack of heavy costume, it was no question that Amy won the game, but it was still exciting. They rolled onto their backs and gazed up at the night sky together.

Looking at the stars reminded them both of Amy's imaginary Raggedy Doctor. The man Amy had created to have adventures and see the universe with. She still was like that, Rory knew, and even if she denied it, he knew that she still believed in him. Even Rory still believed at times. He still remembered the brushed she had shown him that couldn't possibly have been destroyed by wind. As they talked, Rory found himself glad that the Doctor hadn't ever shown up. He couldn't see her keeping a space for him if Amy had all of space and time at her hands. He was surprised she'd had settled for him as it was. Rory Williams was, by far, not the most interesting boy in Leadworth, especially not for someone as amazing as _The_ Amelia Pond.

"You're lucky you fell." Amy noted, after she was bored with the topic of space.

"Because I didn't want to dance?" Rory asked.

She chuckled. "Yes. Injury was the only thing to stop me from making you do it!" she squeezed his hand.

"Seems a bit unfortunate," He turned his head to the side to see her. "I was sort of looking forward to dancing. With you, I mean."

Amy grinned. "Of course you were!" She stood up and offered a hand to help Rory. "I'm amazing after all."

"Sure you are." He joked, although the sarcasm was hardly there.

"Well, come on then. The party's not over yet."

Rory looked way from the playground towards Meredith's place. "We're going back?" He wasn't exactly fond of that idea.

Amy had a mischievous grin. "Nope. Quick, what dances do you know?"

Of course at the mention of that question, all knowledge of dances that Rory had, disappeared. Finally he muttered: "I know the Macarena."

"Perfect!" Amy started mumbling the tune, completely mispronouncing the words. Not that anyone knew them anyway. She did the moves along with it.

Rory laughed and soon enough joined in. They both tried their best to supply the music and remember the steps, although it was far from the real recording. There was a moment where they both stubled into each other, Amy turning the opposite y so she'd purposely be facing Rory. As if reading each other's mind, they both tried to correlate the moves on each other. Arms held out to the other's shoulders, then crossing onto their heads, but it turned out too confusing and they ended up feeling like a tangled mess.

They spun and giggled until the Macarena turned into to two just moving around in tight circles. Amy reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, still humming the tune. She came close to his face, eye level, and Rory went cross-eyed for a moment. She grinned. "Are you gonna kiss me, or do I _always_ have to initiate the first move?"

Rory blinked. It wasn't as if he hadn't thought t it, but now that she'd mentioned it he became too nervous and dumbstruck to try."Wha…what about the Maca—"

"I'd rather do something else." And without another word, she closed the distance between them and sealed their first kiss of many to come.


	34. Chapter 34: A New Coat

_I wanted to wait until I'd seen The Angels Take Manhattan before I posted this chapter, and so now, after picking myself up from that sadly beautiful episode, I give you this! I like this chapter a bit, I think it's just any River/Doctor scenes that I like to do the most. But then again, who am I kidding? I love any scene with our Doctor Who couples. _

_and of course, I don't own any bit of Doctor Who and I especially didn't think of the terrifying Weeping Angels. Nope, that's all a part of Steven Moffat's crazy mind. _

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><p>"You know it's wrong don't you?" The new guard asked.<p>

River turned her head away from the appearing TARDIS to glance at him. He wasn't new to Stormcage, but he'd been recently assigned to her wing. She hadn't even asked his name yet. "What's so wrong?" she asked.

"You, traveling through space when you're in prison. When you _killed_ the very man you keep running off with."

She grinned as the time machine materialized. "Well, I haven't killed him yet."

The guard rolled his eyes, and turned to leave. Arguing with her was pointless, and something he had been warned not to do. He was told that Dr. Song was a prisoner with no morals, she would always fabricate lies, and fantasies to get what she wanted. She couldn't be trusted at all cost. And when it came to the woman breaking out, there was no stopping her. He was advised to not even try. He went further down the hall to do his job elsewhere.

River was smiling when the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS. He was wearing his darker coat, instead of the tweed, and had some crystal flowers in his right hand. "What were you talking about River? I've had this new coat for weeks now and…" He seemed a bit angry, but that didn't bother River too much, she took the flowers from him and pulled him closer by the coat "You mean it's new?" she interrupted, inspecting the fabric, of course she'd seen it before.

The Doctor struggled a bit before letting River give him a quick kiss. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to kiss her, but he had important business to discuss, _and _he'd forgotten to check diaries… and he could now tell that this was a younger River. So young, she hadn't even offered to check diaries first. Did the young River Song like kissing him as much as the current River? But that wasn't the point! He'd almost spoiled the future because he hadn't been careful. What would have happened then? "Um… yeah. A few weeks actually. Someone told me I needed a new one, so I found this ol' thing." He said lamely. He scratched his head, and pried her fingers away from his coat. "Sorry. I must have gotten the timing wrong." He started inching back to the TARDIS. "I'm not cross with you, just…"

"Me." She finished. "But not now, right?" She eyed him up and down. "Later."

"Yes." The Doctor grinned, glad she understood. "Timey wimey and all." He reached for the door, but River grabbed his hand to stop him. "Slow down sweetie, there's no rule saying you've got to leave now." She pulled him over to sit on the less than comfortable bed. "Judging by that coat, you've recently been to Berlin, am I right?"

The Doctor chuckled as he glanced at her. "Of course I've been to Berlin! Lord of Space and Time, and you think I haven't been to Berlin?"

River gave him a look and rolled her eyes. Apparently he hadn't yet. She gave him time to process her question a little more, and laughed when he finally got it. "Oh, oh! You mean we do something in Berlin."

"Spoilers, apparently." River explained. "Ooh I do like saying that!" she grinned.

"We must both be earlier in our time stream." The Doctor continued. He straightened his bow tie with a glance in her direction. "Have you got a diary?"

She nodded and pulled it out from underneath her pillow. "But couldn't we call it something else? Diary sounds so…dainty."

"It's a great word!" the Doctor defended. "I love diaries! It sounds so much better than saying something like _journal, _or _log!_" They both grinned at each other. River shook her head. "Alright. Now I'm supposed to ask where we're at."

"Right!" He started to focus again. "Well, I've been to demons run." She looked over at him, he'd have to be more specific. "Oh…" he started. "I know who you are now."

River raised an eyebrow in shock. He said he hadn't been to Berlin yet, but he knew who she was? "You do? I thought that…"

"_Spoilers, _Dear." He laughed. Maybe this would be harder than usual.

River smiled and held the flowers closer to her face. "The flowers are truly lovely." She stated with a smirk. "But, you only got them so that I wouldn't be as angry that you were angry, didn't you?"

He scratched his head again but smiled. "Maybe, I wasn't sure how you'd react. It's supposed to be a…date." He suddenly stood up and turned to her. "I've got to go! It felt sort of like a date here, except for the lack of explosions! But it's with the wrong River! I mean, you're the right River of course, I—like all of you… I mean whatever time I meet you in, and I just can't be late to a future thing with you!"

River laughed and stood up with him. She handed him the flowers. "You've got a time machine, you can't be late." She pointed out.

The Doctor looked back at his TARDIS knowingly and then again at River. "You'd be surprised."

They smiled as River kissed him on the cheek. "Don't keep me waiting." She said.

He nodded with a determined look across his face. Her words reminded him so much of Amy, and even Melody as well. How long had they both already waited for him? Amy couldn't be helped anymore, she had done her waiting. But if he could just find Melody, even if he couldn't change the events that happened, maybe he could make things better. The last time he'd seen River, she'd made him believe that he'd be able to do that. That's why he'd gotten the new coat instead of wearing the tweed, which he really liked. "I'll be going now." He pointed to the TARDIS. "But, I'll be back! Don't worry about that." He leaned down to peck her on the lips, forgetting that this was a younger River, a River who was a bit more impulsive.

River wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. In shock, the Doctor forgot what he was supposed to do with his hands, and once again flailed around a bit. After a moment or two he pulled away from her with a silly grin on his face. He pointed at the watch on the underside of his wrist. "You really aren't very patient, River Song." He joked.

River smiled back and thought about the events leading up to her recent imprisonment. How long it had taken before she had actually met the Doctor, and all those years at Luna University, finding out for herself if she could trust him or not. "You'd be surprised" she copied his earlier reply. "How patient I can be, Doctor." She smiled as he tapped her on the nose before entering the TARDIS and flying away.


	35. Chapter 35: An Easy Distraction

_Hello you lovelies! Here's the next chapter which I hope you enjoy! Thank you to all the reviewers, favorites, and follows. Everytime I see a new email about someone who likes my story, I squee like a strange, happy, little kitten. So without further adieu I give you chapter 35. _

_dislcaimer: Moffat holds the reigns right now, not me._

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><p>"Mels…" Amy followed me down the thrift store aisle as I tried to ease farther away from her. I reached for a dress on the rack at random, and held it out in front of me to view. "What do you think?" I asked. I hadn't even looked at it yet.<p>

Amy gave me a hard stare. "I think," she started "That you're avoiding my question. You're hiding something, and you're lying." She pursed her lips.

I shook my head and looked away from her. "Amy, I lie all the time! You'd think if I was lying, you wouldn't be able to tell." She continued to stare down at me until I held up the black and brown patched dress again. "I ain't hiding anything! I just sort of like the dress!" Once looking at it, I did notice it had its own sort of charm, but that wasn't the purpose it was supposed to serve.

"Hmm. Not really your style Mels." Her voice was thick with sarcasm. "Now answer my question."

I held up my hands in mock surrender. I could make something up real quick, no problem. "Alright, alright. He's just busy trying to get that job. Saving lives sure ain't a walk in the park, mate."

"He didn't tell me about that…" Count on Rory to leave me with making up the cover story.

"Well, if you won't believe anything else, you think he's cheating?" I bated. It was a ridiculous thought, one neither of us could really see, but Amy was being ridiculous too. She had pointed out that Rory, once again, had been acting odd. Of course Rory had been acting strange, he'd explained the reason to me, but just because she knew I knew didn't mean that I would just give his secret up. Plus, one would think by now that Amy would have noticed what's going on in that mind of his whenever he starts acting secretive, or when he can't stop blushing like a ripe tomato, he seemed to do it quite often.

There was a gleam of shock in her eye which made me feel a tad bit horrible. It wasn't the greatest suggestion I'd ever had, but it did have a purpose. The way she reacted, and what she said next proved that she knew him well enough to know he'd never do something like that. She wouldn't even accept it, she'd ruled it off so quickly. "Who, Rory? Of course not!" she chuckled. "Rory's mine. He would never."

"What's that mean?" I joked.

Amy rolled her eyes and smiled at me. "I mean, Rory loves me and I don't think anything can change it." She started going through the rack I had just looked through, "And that was a stupid question." She added.

"Well, I'll tell ya, that's one thing you can always count on."

"That you ask stupid questions?"

I rolled my eyes. "I've never do anything stupid, thanks very much."

"So what's gotten into him then?" Amy was still on the subject.

I sighed. She somehow knew how to tell when I was lying about simple things like Rory planning some extravagant "date" night, but yet she never once caught the big lies like my alien weapons, and lack of a real house and home, it baffled me sometimes. "I'm not at liberty to say." I noted.

"But you know." She pointed her finger an inch from my nose.

I pushed her hand away. "Maybe. What's it to you?"

"Well, if you're not worried, then I won't be." She looked over to me; I still had the dress in my hand down at my side. "You should try it on. Maybe _you'd_ look good in it."

We ventured towards the fitting rooms and I tried the dress on as quickly as I could. It surprisingly did look alright considering I had just picked it from the rack for a convenient distraction. At first, I didn't have the slightest desire to buy it. If I got it, it would need a little something extra to make it better, maybe with a vest and some boots. I was sure that I could make it work.

"I like it." Amy announced after I'd stepped out, and had joined her on the bench. "I'm sure some _boys_ would like it on you too." She joked.

"It is a bit eye catching if it had the right stuff, isn't it?" I grinned.

Amy grinned back, although I realized that it wasn't in appreciation of the dress. "Wait, don't tell me."

"What?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"Mels! You like someone! You've never ignored a moment to inform me that you "don't need anyone". Who is it?" She was invading my personal space at this point.

"No one!" I exclaimed, pushing her away a bit. Her persistence to find someone who'd make me just as happy as she and Rory were could get annoying. I knew her heart was in the right place, it always was, but I was getting tired of her doing it. "It's not a part of my destiny." I slipped.

"What?" she glanced over to me confused.

"Nothing." I looked down at the store tiles.

"You know, it's not ridiculous for you to like someone Mels." She seemed calm, like she'd been expecting to tell me this for years. "I don't know why you seem to think so."

I wanted to tell her my reasons. About how I was supposed to grow up to become a murderer of the greatest man she could ever imagine, and how I wasn't a normal teenage girl living in Leadworth. I had two hearts, and had been experimented on since before I could remember. I would probably have a longer lifespan than everyone I would ever care about, and, being a psychopath, I wasn't supposed to care about anyone. That wasn't something that a person would find applicable to a healthy relationship. Why would I want it anyway? It had no purpose with what I was made to do. I knew Amy was trying to help, but the truth was that I was better off this way; I didn't need any more attachments to slow me down in the end. "I just… don't want any of that." I managed to say.

Amy rolled her eyes at me. "Whatever Mels. Just wait, someone's going to change your mind one of these days, and I'll be there to say I told you so."

"You're so supportive." I fiddled with the tags on the dress, they made it a bit itchy. "Anyways, you should head out. I think Rory wants to talk to you."

She gave me a skeptical side glance. "I thought you said nothing was wrong."

"Of course not. He said after we get done here, to meet him in Leadworth Park." I grinned. "Although, he politely gave me instructions to become easily distracted on the way, so it'd only be you who shows up."

Amy stood up, but seemed to be lost in thought. Her eyes moved from place to place as one thing to the next flew through her mind. I had grabbed my bag and was ready to walk out when Amy placed her hand against the wall, blocking me, with a knowing smile across her face. "Rory and I have been together for a while." She said.

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. The whole town knows." A glance at my side revealed one of the store workers, Kayla Reid, nodding in agreement.

Amy shook her head like I wasn't getting the point. "And it'll always be me and him, right?"

"I can't deny that." I would never _want _to deny it. "Mr. and Misses Perfect." I smiled.

"He's going to…" she was beaming now, stopping mid-sentence... "You knew." She chuckled. "You must have known all along that we should be together. He must have told you…"

I nudged her with a smirk. "You should hurry. I'll get this, and catch up later." I pulled her into a quick hug before I could change my mind. I wasn't a very affectionate person, but everything seemed so exciting and wonderful at the moment. It was weird feeling so optimistic about my parents for once. Amy giggled as she hugged me back, and eventually let go. She waved before retreating to the front of the store and heading her way to the park. I turned to leave and had almost gotten to the doors when Kayla Reid noticed. "Mels, aren't you going to pay for that?"

I had thought about paying for the dress until I had looked at the price, and realized I never carried any money with me anyway. Amy couldn't pay for it this time, so of course I did the first thing that came to mind, I ran. Things like this happened all the time with me though, and I knew that some shop worker wouldn't turn me in over some cheap dress, even if I was shoplifting. People in town were sick of me, but I think they'd learned that sitting in a cell overnight didn't actually teach me any lessons. Plus, this seemed like a good enough distraction for me to buy Rory some time; although I should have grabbed some chocolates, or some other candies for the chase that followed.


	36. Chapter 36: Not Ready

_Hey everybody!  
><em>_So this story seems to have taken a surprise 2-3 month hiatus. I'm sorry! I'm sooo sorry!  
>I had these chapters in my mind for so long, but every time I tried to sit down and write it, to write anything really, it just wouldn't sound or feel right. Recently I've gotten back into it, and I'm glad to say my writing is starting to seem better again. It still may take a few chapters to get back into the swing of things, but I sort of like this one, at least I think it's <em>_okay...  
>Anyway, I'll stop about that now. THANK YOU to everyone who reviewedfavorited/story alerted during this unexpected break! You guys helped to bring me back to life! =P  
>moving on... I don't own the smaller on the outside TARDIS, or the show that comes with it. haha<em>

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><p>Leadworth could get extremely hot on the days leading up to the end of summer. I was burning up. After hearing a sound like a door struggling to be moved, I opened my eyes to view the sun beating down on me through holes in a rotting roof. Still not quite awake, it took me a moment or two to realize where I was. I couldn't remember why, but I wasn't in my room above the Pond's house, instead I was in my old hideout, which I hadn't been to in years.<p>

The door came bursting open soon after, causing me to sit up in surprise. "Oi you!" Amy cried when she saw me leaning against the wall. "Where were you last night?" she pressed.

"Where was I?" I scoffed, wiping the sweat off of my forehead. Amy crossed her arms and continued to stand at the door. "I was giving you two some space. Rory asked me to!"

"We both knew you wouldn't listen though." Amy sighed and came over to sit by me. "So why did you listen for once?" She stared at me as if she knew that something was up. The truth was that she was probably right. I _had_ intended to come over to the park after a few minutes. I was almost more eager to find out what happened between the two than either of them were, something had happened that had stopped me from doing so. All I could remember was leaving the thrift shop in a brand new dress and then waking up here with Amy at the door.

Looking down at myself it was apparent that I had gotten away scotch free with the shoplifted dress. I couldn't remember anything after leaving the shop, but I was sure if it was important enough, then it would come back to me. The important thing was that Kayla hadn't called the police, and I wasn't waking up in a jail cell as I'd done a few times before. "I was… occupied." I supplied. I turned to her, hoping to see an expression similar to elation or anticipation at telling me some form of good news, I assumed that that's why she'd come looking for me, after all.

She didn't look particularly excited about anything. In fact, she mostly looked relieved. Like she'd been more worried about finding me than she had been about telling me of her and Rory's engagement, something wasn't right. "Speaking of Rory," I said. "Where is he?"

"Huh? Oh. He had to go to the hospital. He is a nurse now, you know." She avoided looking at me after saying so.

I sat back against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest. "So why aren't you telling me in great detail what happened last night? You should know if I didn't show up that I'd want a full review of everything you two did and said!"

A small smile slid over Amy's face. She tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear and looked on. "There's not much to tell." She admitted.

I raised an eyebrow, feeling a bit of anxiety rush over me. If something had gone wrong, then it had the potential to ruin everything. The future, the past, everything about me and whatever else I'd come into contact with in my life would soon unravel away. And it would be my fault for not showing up on their date to ease things along and make sure everything was fine. I tried to keep myself calm. "Well talk about it anyway! W..what happened?" I asked.

Amy sighed and was quiet for a moment. I wanted to grab her and shake her, to tell her how important it was to me, to everything, but that wouldn't have been an easy situation to talk myself out of. She noticed my lack of breath and sent a defiant glare my way before muttering an answer. "I'm just not ready." She pursed her lips and quickly looked away from me again.

I shook my head and gazed over to the wall as well. Maybe things hadn't gone as planned, but I was still there. I was still Mels Zucker, secretly Melody Pond, the daughter of her two best friends in the world, and if I was still me, then that meant that somehow things hadn't unraveled yet. I could take a sigh of relief. "Ready for what mate?" I was sure to make my tone lighter so that perhaps she'd forget about how I'd reacted only moments before.

Amy flailed her hands about as she tried to explain. "You know, _marriage!"_

I stuck my fist to my chin making a thoughtful pose. "huh." She glanced over to me and quirked an eyebrow. "But you were so excited yesterday at the thrift shop. I thought we were on the same page." I smirked. "You _did_ think that I was hinting at a proposal right?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "Of course I did! I'm not stupid." She sighed. "And I was excited, but then on the way to the park I started thinking…"

"Thinking?" I tapped her forehead. "What was there to think about? You love him, yeah?"

"Yeah." Amy nodded. "But…"

"There shouldn't be any buts Amy! I know you two and…"

Amy placed her hand against my mouth, successfully shutting me up. I looked down at her hand, contemplating licking her, but decided against it. "Would you let me explain for once Mels?"

Still being shushed by Amy's hand I had no choice but to nod to show my agreement. She took her perfectly manicured fingers away and exhaled. "I was on my way to the park when I started thinking about when we were little. Then I started thinking about the Doctor…"

"That bloody maniac!" my hands turned into fist as Amy's eyes narrowed.

"You said you wouldn't interrupt me Mels!"

"I never said any such thing!" I crossed my arms.

"Well don't!" she retorted. "Just listen. I wanted to tell you because I thought you might be able to help me sort it out."

I kept my arms crossed in irritation, but motioned that she could go on. Amy rolled her eyes again. "Anyway, I was thinking of the doctor because the one night he visited he told me a bunch of things that I'd never told you or Rory."

I stared back at her in disbelief. I truly had thought she'd told us everything she knew about the Doctor, at least to me! I was after all her best friend and even though I never quite liked the time traveling idiot, I thought she trusted me with stories about him. I fought the urge to ask why she'd never told us before and let her continue her story.

"Mostly I thought that it had just been a dream. After the stories, I woke up in my bed thinking of blue boxes and the "silly old doctor", but sometimes the things he said feels like it could be so real…" she glanced at me to gauge what I was thinking. Despite wondering if I actually hated the Doctor or just hoped I'd never meet him, I was truly interested in what Amy was going to say. She'd always been in a conflict in her mind over whether or not that night had been real, and of course Rory and I had believed her, but with the countless amount of therapist her parents had tried, it was a bit amazing that even a small part of her still remembered. "He said I got to fight pirates and meet my favorite Artist, save a star whale, whatever that is, and I just had to be patient."

I suppressed a chuckle. Patient wasn't a word you could often describe Amy Pond as. She smirked, knowing what I was trying not to laugh at and shook her head. "Shut up." She said. "I'm being serious here."

"Alright." I couldn't stop smiling at the thought. "Sorry. Continue please."

"So what made me realize that I don't think I'm ready was the last bit the raggedy man told me." She picked at the little strings fraying at the bottom of her skirt. "He said that I'd fall in love with 2000 year old roman soldier."

"Why would that stop you from being happy with Rory?" of course she didn't know that Rory probably was this "roman soldier" but still at this point wouldn't it have been obvious? He'd dressed like a centurion for a costume party, sometimes he even acted like he was years older, and he and Amy were always together. Wouldn't that seem like enough proof?

She sighed and continued pulling the strings on her skirt. "You don't get it Mels. Rory and I, we're only twenty. So if I fall in love with some 2000 year old man, it's got to mean that I go traveling with the Doctor and find him there. So what if Rory and I aren't right for each other?"

"But what if you are?" I countered. I tried to think of a way to explain without revealing my knowledge of the legends about my parents I'd been told from Madame Kovarian and the church. "Couldn't it be just as likely that Rory is the man the Doctor talked about?"

Amy shook her head. "There's no way. Rory's just a human…" still she looked conflicted. Almost like a memory was trying to push through a part of her mind.

"But you said yourself that you thought it was just a dream. Are you really going to put so much faith in something that you aren't sure even happened?"

Her eyes met mine with a glare. Perhaps I'd said the wrong thing, but I was just trying to convince her to stay with Rory. "Why are you always so determined to disprove the Doctor? I am well aware that perhaps he wasn't real and I don't need you making it worse!"

"I just want to know." I decided "Are you willing to give Rory up for a fairytale?"

Amy opened her mouth to strike back, but just as quickly grew quiet. She crossed her arms with a pout. "No. Not unless he'd be happy without me."

I placed my hand in the air, emphasizing the point. "There ya go mate. Some old man shouldn't matter if you're not willing to lose Rory."

"But why would I have to lose him? We were together long before we started dating and Rory and I will always be friends…" Amy pushed against the wall, standing up. She looked down at me with mild irritation and disappointment. "I'm not sure if that really helped much, Mels." She held a hand out to help me up. "but I guess I should have told Rory about it anyway."

I scoffed; a tad bit offended that she hadn't found what I'd said very helpful. I thought I'd done pretty well, considering I couldn't give away what I knew, but apparently she didn't see my brilliance in the same light as I did. "Yeah," I agreed. "I think he needs to know too." Although it had to be done delicately. If he knew he had to compete with some unknown man along with the Doctor it might end badly for all of us.


	37. Chapter 37: The Answer

_This chapter feels cheesy to me, but in a good way! I enjoyed writing this one, although I'm not sure why. :P_

___Also I'm not sure if the show mentions if Rory's parents are still together or not, but I get the feeling that they aren't because in the episodes it seems to be just Brian. Whether they departed due to divorce, or a tragic event is really left to the imagination, I guess. BUT, because I had a chapter with Rory's mom in it before, and this chapter mentions her, I think that we should just assume that she's either busy at work most of the time and therefore is never home, or she does something cool like traveling the world while Brian stays home to water the plants._

___Anyways, thanks for all the reviews/favorites/alerts and whatnot. I am so grateful to you all! Please enjoy this latest chapter. :D_

_I don't own Doctor Who, Moffat and a bunch of other people do._

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><p>All Rory wanted to do when he reached his front door was head to his room, flop down onto his bed, and take the longest, well deserved nap he'd ever had. Work at the hospital that day had been busy. There had been quite a lot of elder patients who had visited and none of the other nurses had wanted to put the IV in Mr. Grumman's arm (the old man detested needles, and it was his third visit that month). After getting Grumman to settle down, he was sent to calm the family members of a kid who'd gotten into a car accident. The girl would most likely be fine, but convincing her family of this proved to be difficult. He had also had to run a ton of errands for the rest of the staff, never getting a moment to sit still, <em>and<em> his girlfriend had rejected him the night before. The latter made him feel in need of a nap the most, and maybe if he were lucky… he wouldn't have to wake up for years.

Rory sighed as he turned the key in his door. Thinking like that was ridiculous, and hardly realistic. Just a normal nap would have to do. He opened the door and entered to see his father sitting in his old chair, reading the local news. He took a second, or two to look up from his paper and meet his son's eye. "Hi Dad. I'm home." Rory droned. He hoped he wouldn't get a million questions about why he was home so early. Generally he'd be over at Amy's at that time.

Brian Williams looked over to his son quizzically. He wasn't sure what was going on, but could tell that something was bothering the boy. "Amelia called a few times." He noted, watching Rory's face fall. "It sounds like she really wants to talk to you."

"Did she?" Rory dead panned. He didn't understand what she wanted to talk about. An explanation would be nice, but it was Amy Pond. _He_ figured it'd take more than just this to cause her to confess what she was really thinking.

"Yeah." Brian studied his son, analyzing ever crease on his forehead and stain on his scrubs. "What's wrong Rory?"

Rory shook his head at his father. It was nothing he could help with. After all Brian and his mum were still together, he couldn't understand what had happened. He shouldered his bag and gave his dad a reassuring excuse of "Nothing, just tired" before heading to his room. He hadn't lied, he was tired, but still it was obvious Brian had seen through him and knew there was something else.

Rory sat in his bed for hours trying to fall asleep. He had thought, with how exhausted he was, that it would have been easy. But just as he had the night before, his mind was too full with doubts, worries, and "what ifs" that it was impossible to close his eyes for too long.

He couldn't stop wondering about the previous evening. If he were being fair, Amy hadn't really rejected him… but she didn't really say anything for it either. He had figured that she would be forward about her answer no matter what it was. He had prepared for her to tell him that she didn't want to or that she never planned on marrying, but he hadn't expected her to just stare back at him in a panic. Seeing her react that way brought about the worst feelings he'd ever had in a long time.

Thinking about it though, he realized that maybe it was too soon. He had always been so dedicated to Amy that he hadn't stopped to wonder if he was moving too fast for her. Maybe his question had just startled her and she didn't know how to respond because she had never considered the topic. But she had seemed slightly off since the beginning of the date; Mels must have tipped her off somehow.

He sighed, tired of thinking. All he wanted was to rest, but that didn't seem like it'd be happening any time soon, so instead he dug into his scrubs pocket and retrieved his hand-me-down cellphone he'd gotten from an older cousin. Throughout work they weren't allowed to have the electronics on, so Rory often forgot when he got home to take it out and check his messages. That seemed to be a mistake this time.

As the screen came up he remembered his dad mentioning that Amy had called earlier. She'd also called his phone, which was odd. Normally if Amy wanted to talk to him, she'd just come over. She wasn't too fond of talking, or texting on the phone, at least not with him. He had about three missed calls and a text message, all from her.

The message came first. He opened it and stared at the strange question as images, dreams he'd had, filled his mind. "_Would you be with me for 2000 years if I wanted you to?" _ It asked. He blinked at the screen, confused. That number always seemed to follow him somehow, even when he slept. Was it just a coincidence, or did it actually mean something?

He opted not to text her back and instead dialed her number right away. Amy picked up quicker than he had expected. "Rory, finally!" she exclaimed.

"Amy…" he started.

"Did you get my text?" she interrupted "I didn't want to text it, I wanted to ask you myself but you wouldn't answer your phone."

Rory nodded and then felt heat color his face because of course Amy couldn't see him nod. "Uh… yeah. What's that about?" he asked.

"it's about last night." Amy said. "Now what's your answer?"

Rory looked down at his left hand resting in his lap. He knew his answer right away, but wasn't sure if it was the right answer, the one she was looking for. If he said something wrong, would she call even their relationship off? He had to tell her the truth either way though. "Of course I would. Always." He promised.

He could hear her on the other end take a deep breath and then laugh. "I sort knew you'd say that. Maybe Mels is right… it is you, Rory."

"What?" he raised an eyebrow in total confusion. "What did Mels say about me?" He could only imagine the embarrassing things she could reveal, or even make up about him that could seem true.

"Nothing. It's alright, I'll tell you about it when I see you." She took another breath. "Okay, I'll marry you. I've thought about it, and I'm focusing on what I want now, and not on some promise that was made when I was just a little girl."

Rory's shock could be heard through the phone. He hadn't said anything yet, but for both sides the emotion was almost tangible. "s..so you want me?" he stuttered out.

"Duh!" Amy chuckled. "I wouldn't agree to marry you otherwise, you numpty!"

Rory's shock started to subside as her words sank in. The promise she was talking about had to be something that dealt with the doctor. Her moment of panic the day before had been about that? And now, with her saying that she chose him… that meant that she wanted him more than she wanted to travel the universe and see the stars with her "raggedy man". She had picked Rory. Relief welled up inside him as he started to laugh, Amy joined in only to ask seconds later what was so funny, still it took a bit for them to calm their chuckles.

Finally their chuckles eased up and Rory gathered his courage as he pulled a dark blue velvet box out of his jacket pocket hanging on the coat rack. "Do you think… do you think I could come over? I'm off work and have nothing to do here."

"Yeah!" he could hear her smiling. "And bring that ring I knew you were hiding in your pocket. I want to try it on."

He laughed. "I was sort of planning on it." They fell into a silence as he gathered his things together to head over to her house. "Oh, and Amy?"

"Yes Rory?"

"What was Mels right about? You said that she was right about something…"

"Oh." Amy laughed. "like I said, I'll tell you when you get here. It's probably weird to say over the phone." Rory smiled, knowing that any story with Mels being right could sound strange over the phone. "Alright, well I'll be over in a few minutes then." He added.

"Oh, and Rory?" she asked.

"uh-huh." He placed the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he put his shoes on.

"I love you." She said a quick goodbye and then hung up the phone before he could respond.

Rory sat on his bed, eyes wide and shoes forgotten as he continued to hold the phone between his shoulder and ear. She'd never said that to him before, always saying her reasons were that Rory already knew so she'd never need to say it. A genuine smile lit up his face while he thought about all the times before that she'd never said it, and every moment leading up to it couldn't have been more perfect. "I love you too." He replied, even though he knew she couldn't hear.


End file.
